Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
Tense in stories and in reports
Choose the tense a piece of writing needs — the past for a story or a report, the present for instructions and general facts, and the past perfect for what happened earlier still.
Before you choose a tense, ask what kind of writing you are doing. A story and a set of instructions are not two versions of the same job, and they do not use the same tense. The choice is made once, at the top of the page, and then everything below it has to keep to it.
The past is for what happened
Stories, diary entries, newspaper reports, an account of a trip — anything that is over and done with takes the simple past. We reached the river just before sunset.
The present is for what is always so
Instructions, recipes, descriptions of how a thing works, and plain facts about the world take the present. Boil the water first. Ice melts in the sun. Nothing here happened on a particular day, so nothing here is past.
The past perfect steps back one more
Inside a story that is already in the past, the past perfect marks what happened earlier still. By the time the guests arrived, the cake had gone. Arrived is the story's own time; had gone is before it.
A commentary is the odd one out worth knowing about. A match is being described as it happens, so it is told in the present even though it is an account of events: the bowler runs in and the batter steps back. Write the same match up an hour later and every verb goes into the past.
Worked example
These notes have to become a story: "gate locked — we climb wall — rain starts — remember umbrella left at home".
It is a story, so the whole thing goes into the past.
The decision is made once for the piece, not sentence by sentence.
Try it together
Let us fix one paragraph together, one verb at a time.
The draft reads: "The bell rings and the children run out to the playground. Somebody has taken the good bat, which annoys them." It is meant to be a story about last Tuesday.
1.A story about last Tuesday needs the past. Write the past form of "rings".
Have a go
You are writing the instructions on a packet of seeds. Which sentence fits?
Ready to practise?
Eight questions on what you have just read. Nothing is timed, and you can play as many times as you like.