Hi all,

I'm getting very confused about tenses. In my novel I refer to the past, e.g., "she had woken up that morning ..." or, "she remembered that day well. She had been in an English class ..." but I'm not sure how to use the tenses. I thought everything had to be in the past but I've noticed in recent books I've read that the author begins with, "she had ..." but then reverts to the current tense, even though he is still describing something in the past.

So which is right?

Cheers.

Hi LuckyStar,
Usually the past perfect tense (had done or had been doing) is used to show the sequence of events is out of chronological order. However, including all those hads can get a bit heavy so writers tend to leave them out and revert to simple past (did, looked etc) with maybe a past perfect at the beginning of the para to show it took place before.

Does that make sense?

Elspeth

That's great Elsbeth - thanks!