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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33377
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33377
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

One of the great misconceptions is that a story can be written in the past tense or the present tense. This is not the case. Individual sentences and sometimes phrases are written in particular tenses. Any substantial passage of prose is likely to contain multiple tenses.

Stories are written in the narrative past (most of the time) or the narrative present (occasionally). The narrative past means that the narrator is reporting events that happened in the past relative to the time the narration takes place. Narrative present means that the events are being narrated as they take place.

Sentences in the narrative present can contain verbs in past present or future tense. So can sentences written in the narrative past.

The difference between the narrative past and the narrative present is much greater than a difference of tense. The narrative past is reflective. The narration takes place from a place of calm after the events that are being related are over. The narrative present is immediate and unreflective. Things are happening right now.

The narrative past is the default mode of storytelling. Stories are told after the fact. They are a form of memory. Stories told in the narrative present tend to have a jumpy and somewhat fatalistic feel to them. The lack of reflection comes across as a lack of agency, a lack of control. It is a very hard thing to maintain over a long work.

So, moving from the narrative present to the narrative past is probably a good thing because the narrative present is unusual and hard to maintain. But it is going to be a major rewrite because you have to move to that more reflective stance of the the after-the-fact narrator.

Your attempt to rewrite at the sentence level are not working because the differences between the narrative present and the narrative past go much deeper than the sentence level. You have to reimagine and retell your story from a different perspective and in a different mood. In all likelihood, a clean rewrite is going to be the least painful and most effective way to make the transition to narrative past.

So, I don't think a line by line rewrite will work very well. I suspect that you have to reimagine the scene and that the difficulties you are having are a strong indication of that. It is part of the writing process. We all have to reimagine scenes from time to time. It can be very painful. But the pain of rewriting is inversely proportional to the amount of time since the original writing. If you can't face rewriting now, go on with the novel in narrative past and when you have finished, come back and recast the opening in narrative past.

Original score: 4