Past tense writing troubles. Specifically the word "Now"

Here's how to fix your problem.

1. Pick up your grammar books.
2. Hold them over a fire.
3. Let go.

You can't write out of a grammar book. You can only write out of a fluent grasp of usage in the language you are writing in. In the case you cite, your grasp of English usage is clearly far ahead of your knowledge of grammar, so let go of the grammar and get on with your writing.

Now I was on the plane with my best friend.

Is fluent English usage. People say things like this all the time. That is all that matters.

Grammar is an attempt to reduce usage to a set of rules. There are multiple grammars and none of them succeeds entirely in reducing received usage to a set of rules. Often their attempts to do so rely on deciding that a word simply has two meanings rather than that it can be used in two different grammatical positions. This sort of thing makes grammatical systems work, but it is all artifice. And it is a complicated artifice that is difficult to learn in full.

There is nothing wrong with using grammar to improve your usage, but this can only take you so far. True fluency requires an ear for the way the language is spoken and written. If you are reasonably fluent, but have a hazy grasp of grammar, trying to write grammatically is going to make you write less fluently, not more.

(Yes, I know, people are often told to make sure their grammar is perfect before they submit for publications. That is because editors see hundreds of manuscripts that are not written in fluent idiomatic English. That may be because the writer just has no ear for language, or it may be because their natural fluency has been crippled by a half-digested grammar book or an incompetent English teacher. But if you have a good ear and write fluently and confidently, the editor will not object to your work, even if they quibble with an item of agreement here or there. But if you are not fluent, no amount of grammar is ever going to make you so.)

posted over 7 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Mark Baker‭

4371 reputation 12 1104 744 58

There are two uses for "now". One means the present moment, and it's hard to use in the past tense. I mean, you could write:

"You have to do it now," I told her.

And even

I told her now was the time to act.

But not

Now I was on the plane.

Instead, you can use phrases like

• at that time (if you have already set up the time period)
• once (or even once upon a time)
• 5 years ago
• in the spring of my 25th year
• shortly after my father died
• several years before this trip

and so on. If none of them fit, why do you want to start the sentence with "Now"? It's possible you want the second use for now, which is to start a sentence with it to get people's attention, or as part of some set phrases:

Now look here, young man, I expect you to obey me!

Now now, that's just too extreme.

Now and then I get lonely

Now what?

Now this is new!

You can just keep these uses without worrying.

posted over 7 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Kate Gregory‭

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