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Q&A Stating facts in novel written in the present tense, third person omniscient. Can I use the past tenses or would I risk losing consistency?

Writing in the third person present tense, you want to depict "flashback" scenes or other past scenes in the past tense. That's fine. In fact, it clearly separates what was in the past from what'...

posted 7y ago by Tom Au‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:36:51Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24697
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Tom Au‭ · 2019-12-08T05:36:51Z (over 4 years ago)
Writing in the third person present tense, you want to depict "flashback" scenes or other past scenes in the past tense.

That's fine. In fact, it clearly separates what was in the past from what's in the present.

It's may actually be clearer than the standard format of using "all" past tense. both the "present" past, and the truly "past" past.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-09-20T23:15:44Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 1