Slipping in to present and past tense

I have always found it hard when writing in past tense (was) and slipping into present tense. Please help me! I will give some examples below, are they okay for past tense writing? Am I just doubting myself?

He let out an audible groan and rubbed his eyes, the early start already catching up on him.

He stood there taking in the surroundings, the late April sun now warm on his back.

He watched the dust dancing like fairies, in the beam of sunlight that shone in from the partially open velvet curtains.

You could already feel the heat, from the early summers day hanging thick in the air.

Charlie rolled down the creaky window, so he could clearly see out.

The sun was just breaching the tops of the trees behind, projecting brilliant late April sunlight, onto the rear of the property. The individual pains from the old leadlight windows, bounced back the golden sunlight like glistening diamonds.

Thanks
Steve

 

These are all fine. More common issue than you'd think, so nothing to worry about, but these are all past. I'm sure someone can tell you exactly what version of past tense they are and why that matters but to answer your question, yeah they're all good

 

Great news thanks, I am probably getting to hung up on it, but its easy to start doubting yourself.

 

As The Piper said, these are all fine. The verbs you are worried about are participles, which are verbs used as adjectives. You don't have to conjugate them. There are some different constructs here, some relative clauses, etc, but basically you're all good. I have put a little edit below to show what I mean.

If you're a native English speaker, don't worry about getting tenses right. You should be able to do that instinctively. If it's not your first language, I would recommend looking up participle use just to set your mind at ease.

Bold: the main verb of the sentence. This is what the main person involved is doing.
Underlined: participles. Verbs turned into descriptions of the secondary objects. 'Shining' would sound better than 'that shone' because it agrees/same construction as 'dancing'.

 

Thanks that is a great example, I am English and I do need to be more instinctive and relax about it. Funny as I did get caught up with 'Shone' and originally did have shinning, which became Shined and then back to shone!

 

What about speech?

for eg:


“People like what.” Said Grandpa, poking at the bridge of his glasses.

Should it be...

“People like what.” Said Grandpa, as he pocked the bride of his glasses.

Thanks
Steve

 

Same thing, it's still fine. Should be ," said and poked, rather than pocked, though.

 

Lol, sorry typo on pocked! So I can use either when writing past tense? Or are you saying it has to be poked?

Thanks Again

 

No you can use either, just wanted to point out the typo in case you ended up going for that one.