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Although the past tense makes sense due to your sentence construction, a different construction would allow the present tense, by setting a time frame: When Riley and Anna meet, Anna is a beaut...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31843 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31843 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
Although the past tense makes sense due to your sentence construction, a different construction would allow the present tense, by setting a time frame: > When Riley and Anna meet, Anna is a beautiful girl with a smile on her face every day, her smile is his favourite thing about her. > > In their conversations she never says anything to him about death, but of the wonders of life and nature. > > After her death, Riley asserts he knew her smile was fake and Anna wanted to die, but does not reveal how he knows this. (The last example is still a present tense character, talking about his own past). I think this is the writer's choice; whichever you feel is the most clear and readable. A core directive of writing is to be clear to the reader.