Guys, sorry to bother you with my grammar issues again, but... Do I need to stick to the rule inside a paragraph, or it's enough to respect it in a sentence only? Example: I arrived at the point of encounter exactly on time, but only found a dead body instead of a the parcel’s addressee. And instead of a purse full of coins, I received a silver collar from the guards who came in right after. As a result, I’m sitting now in the prison dungeons and thinking of how incredible useless my so useful gift has proven to be. Of course, I can easily escape by passing through the wall, except a tiny “but”: the collar will stay on this side. Silver, as known, cannot be enchanted; this metal even blocks some kinds of magic. For me, this means that my body and head are going walk out of the wall in two separate pieces. Not a big deal, but they’ve got used to each other during nineteen years of my life and won’t be happy of such a separation.In this particular paragraph is it ok to have first sentences in past, and then switch to the present tense? Or I need to edit first couple of phrases into Present Perfect? Thanks!!!
I think what you've got is good, but someone who's more knowledgeable about proper tense usage might be able to better explain why. I'm quite sure that present perfect wouldn't sound right, anyway.
Okay, I just looked this up because I didn't want to give you false advice, and my initial position was totally wrong. From what I read on IUP's website, what you have is perfectly acceptable. Just don't have different tenses in one sentence. Now, I'm confident in what I'm about to say, as I've looked that up as well. You should not use Present Perfect here. From what you've written, I don't think you could. You see, to form the Present Perfect tense, you simply need to stick has/have, and only has/have, in front of the verb. I don't think you can put either of those in front of the verbs of your first couple of sentences in an accurate way. I have arrived at the point of encounter exactly on time, but have only found a dead body instead of a the parcel’s addressee. This implies that the character is presently talking to someone about something they are doing at that moment. I has arrived at the point of encounter exactly on time, but has only found a dead body instead of a the parcel’s addressee. Unless your an internet cat wanting a cheeseburger, this is just painful to read. So yeah, that looks good all around. This is the website that I used as reference for the "Tense Shifting" section. https://www.iup.edu/writingcenter/writing-resources/grammar/tense-shifting/ These are the websites that I used as reference for the "Present Perfect" section. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/present-perfect-tense/ and https://www.ef.edu/english-resources/english-grammar/present-perfect/
You can have several tenses inside a paragraph and you can have several tenses inside one sentence, too. Your example is fine. This is just playing "stick the tail on the donkey". Grammar doesn't work that way, learning grammar even less so.
Some ideas below for re-writing that passage. The tenses, as stated above, look fine, but you could cut out some unnecessary words: I arrived at the point of encounter exactly on time, but only found a dead body instead of a the parcel’s addressee. And instead In place of a purse full of coins, I received a silver collar from the guards who came in right after. As a result, I’m sitting now in the prison dungeons and thinking of how incredibly useless my so useful gift has proven to be. Of course, I can easily escape by passing through the wall, except a tiny “but”: the collar will stay on this side. Silver, as known, cannot be enchanted; this metal it even blocks some kinds of magic. For me, This means that my body and head are going to walk out of the wall in two separate pieces separately. Not a big deal, but they’ve got used to each other during nineteen years of my life and won't be happy of such a separation I can’t imagine they'll be happy. By my calculations you'd lose 18 words without any meaning being compromised. One question to consider - how can a head 'walk'?
Actually, I seem to know the grammar rules, in theory But when it goes to actually using them... The issue is that at school we were taught that putting everything in the same tense is a must. But what works in essays doesn't feel to work in the fiction text (at least, in my opinion), that's why I've hesitated and decided to ask. Thanks a lot, guys for your answers! That makes my life much easier, I've been spending like half an hour on each paragraph trying to put everything in past or present without being satisfied with the result.
Thanks a lot, @Alastair Woodcock ! Funny. This novel is my first one ever written (in Russian), and I'm translating it into English now. And back in the time, I used to use LOTS of unnecessary introductory words, etc., thinking that this adds a "common speech" touch to the text. Seems that I'm taking this into English version as well. I'll definitely go through text with the edits like the ones you've suggested. My normal practice now, when I have more experience, is to write as it goes, and then just cut out unnecessary words and long descriptions. This way the text becomes approx. 20% shorter, but much cleaner and easy-to-read. Regarding the walking head: that was a "dark joke" to say that she'd die if tried walking through the wall with a silver collar on. Body without a head can't walk either Does it sound too stupid?
It's a nice dark joke but the sentence defies logic. Better to replace 'walk out of the wall' with 'pass through', seeing as you've already used the phrase 'passing through the wall' earlier. Saves you another 3 words into the bargain.
Ok, here's why the tenses are fine: "I arrived ... on time, but only found ..And...I received..." - Simple Past: because the narrator speaks of past events which happened (and are finished with) at some particular point of time (we know exactly when). Present Perfect is not used to describe such events, so it's not possible to use it here. Simple Past is the only tense that fits the description. "As a result, I’m sitting now ... thinking of how incredible useless my so useful gift has proven to be... I can .... " - Present tense because the narrator is describing events that are happening right now (it's Present Continuous because that emphasizes that the events are happening over a prolonged period of time, not just an instant. )and the Present Perfect "has proven" because that's an event which happened at a moment in the past that's not identified (it's kinda vague when). "Silver, as known, cannot be enchanted; this metal even blocks some kinds of magic." - Present tense for the things which just are like this, it's their nature. The "stick the tail on the donkey" comment was addressed at LastMindToSanity, who mistakenly advised that "to form the Present Perfect tense, you simply need to stick has/have in front of the verb". Everything should indeed be the same tense, yes. If, for example, you're writing a book in past tense, then you can't switch your narration to present tense just like that. You choose one narrative tense and stick with it. I suppose in an essay, for example, about Shakespeare, you'll be writing about the same moment of time (Shakespeare's time), so there's no reason to switch to a different tense. But events happen at different points of time (today, an hour ago, yesterday, last year etc) and we use tenses depending on when those events happened. That's the only rule on tenses. You're using Present Tense narrative and your narrator can describe events happening in their past, present or future and for that he needs to put his verbs into past, present or future tenses, accordingly.
Oh, by the way, another tense-related question I have: There is a tense-related trick I've used a couple of times and really liked it. But I'm not sure if this is going to work for English and create the same effect. Can't find a proper example, but will try to come up with an abstract one here. The story is normally told in more or less past tense, like: I walked along the corridor and opened that door. The sound of the explosion made me step back in fear not yet realizing what just happened.And in the next paragraph comes the part where I try to create a feeling of "slow-mo" as if in the moment of danger, my character starts thinking about the events faster than they happen: A white light is born inside the chamber. It grows, moves towards me, consuming everything on its way. In a wink, it reaches the doorway I'm still standing in, throws a wave of cold heat into my face. So, the question is if it really works for the intended effect or just feels wrong?
Plain wrong but can be fixed by adding an explanation of some sort, or a transition. Switching the narrative tense from "I walked... I opened..." to "it grows, it reaches... I'm still standing" doesn't create the effect of slo-mo on it's own. The narration just switches from things that happened in the past to things that are happening now. But in fact, the events are all happening in the same moment in time (let's say that's 5pm last Tuesday). That's why it sounds jarring when the tense changes. There is no explanation why the tense changed. There's nothing to tell us it was because the narrator "starts thinking about the events faster than they happen". For all we know, that character can think faster in past tense, too."A white light was born inside the chamber" makes the event seem to happen with exactly the same speed as "A white light is born inside the chamber". He cannot outrun time and move from past to present time. People only exist in one moment of time. Besides, how are we to know he's thinking faster? We are not really hearing his thoughts and seeing the events. All we see is words on paper. And we read those words at our own speed. A transition can be: "The sound... made me step back in fear, not realizing what had just happened. I still remember everything with perfect clarity. A white light is born inside the chamber. It grows...." The narrator is telling us about all those past events, when he walked along the corridor etc. Then an explosion happens and time seems to slow down, which means things are almost like a still image. And that image is extremely clear, and the narrator can tell us every little detail. But that can only happen if the narrator is telling us the story now, today. Maybe that's grandpa telling us about his young days, then he stops and describes that extremely clear still image. People often do that when they talk, tell us about past things in present tense. He's taking us out of the narration about the events and just describes this image, separately. Of course, there can be other types of transitions, but that's the general idea. There must be some obvious explanation why the narrative changed tense.
