Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/8696
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I was just writing a historical overview of a battle and decided I'd write the introduction in the present tense--the present tense being a narration of a specific event during the war.

I just realized though that in the last sentence, I shifted from there to describing how the events are perceived today.

So instead of the present tense consistently being about how the event occurred, it shifts to how those events are perceived today at the end of the paragraph.

I've fiddled around with the passage a bit, but I'm still not sure how to write it.

Is it better to stick to one tense from one perspective throughout the opening paragraph? How do I go about that? I've changed it from

> This incident has since [links it to current situation] . . . Towards the end of the struggle, the flag would have. . .

to

> This incident would go on to [links it to current situation]. . . Towards the end of the struggle, the flag would have . . .

Does the fix the issue (since the perspective remains unchanged)? To me it seems that it looks to the future from the perspective of the event whereas option earlier it shifted to things as they are now and looks back from there.

Surely I can't stay in the present tense of the event and say:

> This incident will go on to . . .

Right? That sounds sloppy somehow.

Original score: 2