I am relatively new to writing, it's been a long time since I have really done any, probably since school.

I am enjoying writing my first book however I am really struggling with using past and present tense. I can't work out which is best and I seem to be slipping in and out of the two.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

For example, this paragraph
Next morning I arrived back at the hospital with my heart thumping wildly. I love my sister deeply and to see her wired up, the last bit of fight seemingly slipping out of her is killing me slowly.

I just can't work it all out in my head. Can anyone help?

Thanks

Hi Daisy, and welcome to WW.

In your sample, the first sentence is in past tense and the second sentence is in present tense… I think this sort of thing is a bit like riding a bike… it seems impossible to master and then suddenly you can do it without thinking about it.
You need one or the other – both are fine on their own but they don’t mix…

Past tense:
Next morning I arrived back at the hospital with my heart thumping wildly. I loved my sister deeply and to see her wired up, the last bit of fight seemingly slipping out of her, was killing me slowly.
Note the extra essential comma!

Or present tense:
Next morning I arrive back at the hospital with my heart thumping wildly. I love my sister deeply and to see her wired up, the last bit of fight seemingly slipping out of her, is killing me slowly.

You just need to decide which tense you want to use - what affect you want to have on your readers - and go with it.

Dee

Thanks Dee.

I think I am struggling to work it out as I prefer to write in past tense but the story I am writing will just come across better in present tense I think.

I like to write in present tense, and to keep the atmosphere I want to convey I wouldn't (which doesn't mean you shouldn't) use a phrase like 'next morning'. I'd probably do a paragraph break to indicate a gap in time and say 'In the morning...'

Lady B

Thanks for your help.

I have decided I was getting all confuddled so have decided to write in the third person, past tense as it seemed easier that way!

You are welcome. And don't forget, once you write it, you can always change it - it is a lot of work, but if you want to do it, it is worthwhile.

Lady B

Yeah, that is what I figured. I think I am just going to get as much done as possible and see as it pans out, and if I have to, I can go back and change things later. Right now getting the story down is more important to me.

Personally, in this example, even if you use the past tense, I still think 'I love my sister deeply' is fine in the present tense. She's not saying she loved her that morning is she? - she still does, presumably.

But maybe I'm just confusing matters!

Rosy

I think that's a tricky one, Rosy, because whether she still does love her sister deeply depends on lots of things. For instance, her sister might now be dead (whether you can love a dead person is a whole other discussion), or they might have fallen out later in the book.

I'd suggest best to stick with 'I loved my sister deeply' because you're narrating a past event, and your feelings at that (past) time. How you feel now is not relevant to the story because the story is set in the past.

(This may not be true if you're doing something more complicated, like in Susan Fletcher's Eve Green, where she is narrating her current life and remembering events from her childhood. I can't remember for certain if she uses past and present tense appropriately, but I think so, with a very clear division and reason for it.)

Miss Daisy, I think you're wise to start with 3rd person past tense if you haven't been writing that long, since I think that's the simplest and most common. By far the majority of fiction is written in past tense.

Deb

Lots of good advice here. I agree with Rosy that 'I love my sister deeply' is fine if the sister's still alive at the time the narrator is telling the story (as opposed to the time the story's set). It's perhaps particularly not a good idea here, given the rest of the sentence, but in other situations it might be. This is subtle stuff, to do with where your narrator is standing relative to the narration, and perhaps quite more of a challenge to handle than you really want in your first, big piece. Certainly, 'is killing me slowly' isn't right; it needs to be 'was killing me'.

Third or first person past tense is the most usual, and transparent form for a narrative, that never gets in the way.

I think next morning is fine in past tense, in this kind of relatively collquial tone, by the way. You could always say 'The next morning...'

If I were being really, really picky I would wonder whether using 'killing' for the narrator is the right verb in a context where the narrator's sister is actually dying.

Emma

I agree that I love my sister deeply sounds fine in a past tense narrative, but Daisy has decided to write this in past tense third person, and she loves her sister deeply smacks powerfully of present tense to me.

Dee

Yes, I do think that now in 3rd person past tense she loved her sister deeply doesn't neccesarily read like her sister isn't around anymore, or that they have fallen out.