Storytelling Past Tense or Literary Past Tense

Storytelling Past Tense or Literary Past Tense . . .what is it? 

These names describe how authors use past tense in stories. Most past-tense stories are written as though the events are happening now. 

Even though we use the past tense forms of verbs, within the story itself, events are happening in the present.

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As writers, we should all be familiar with the basics of verb tenses. The default tense choices for storytelling are:

• The narrative of most stories is written in past tense:
  She ignored the knock on the door. In these days of social distancing, she didn’t want to take any chances.
• Dialogue (including direct internal dialogue) is written in present tense:
  “I need some chocolate to get me through this day. Stat.”
  
  
• Backstory (events that occurred before the story present) is written in past perfect tense:
  She had eaten all the snacks in the house already.

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The “default” tense for storytelling is past tense. We’ve all heard and read past-tense storytelling our whole lives, so it’s the easiest tense for us to use correctly.

In addition, we all use past tense every day as we share our personal stories. Think of how we answer questions like “How was your day?” or “How was the movie?”

Past tense feels normal to us, so it’s easy for us to get it right. Past tense is so normal that it’s “invisible” to readers—not calling attention to itself—so readers focus only on the story. 

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