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Past Tense Or Present Tense: Which Works Best For Your Story?

Past Tense Or Present Tense: Which Works Best For Your Story?

We compare past tense and present tense in fiction, exploring the advantages and disadvantages of each and asking the question: which works best for your story?

Past Tense Or Present Tense: Which Works Best For Your Story?

Different tenses suit different stories, certain genres, and various authors’ styles. The tense you choose should also suit the personality of your main viewpoint character.

The Past Tense And Present Tense

  1. The past tells us what happened: I ached. She loved. You needed.
  2. The present shows us what is happening: I ache. She loves. You need.

The past gives us some distance:

The boy looked up. The girl with the butterfly tattoo on her wrist twisted on the lawn and smiled at him. Her hair spread out like spilt milk on the grass. He knew he loved her and he did not care if she knew. He wanted to carve her name into the clear sky that framed the edges of the park.

If you have a protagonist who thinks about what will happen next, who makes plans and considers risks, who is calculating, and driven by reason, the past tense would a good fit. Writing a story in past tense allows you to manipulate time, to reveal, and to conceal events.

Past-tense fiction creates a more subtle kind of suspense where we may know the outcome of the story but we want to know how and why we ended up there. This is good for more cerebral, reflective characters. This example can be used as a memory, layered with knowledge of how the story ends.

Great past-tense fiction allows readers who are more comfortable with the format to experience the story in a nuanced, thoughtful way.

The present is immediate:

The boy looks up. The girl with the butterfly tattoo on her wrist twists on the sun splattered lawn and smiles at him. Her hair spreads out like spilt milk on the grass. He’s lost and he knows she knows, but he doesn’t care. He wants to carve her name into the clear sky that frames the edges of the park.

If you have a protagonist who lives in the moment, who is impulsive, foolhardy/brave, and driven by emotions, the present tense could be the perfect vehicle. The present lets the reader see the character’s world in all its immediacy and allows him or her to experience the character’s growth and dilemmas as they happen.

Present-tense fiction creates a kind of suspense where no one knows the outcome. The second example could be written as a memoir or a coming-of-age story. There is a sense of anticipation and excitement that is not there when we use the past tense.

Great present-tense fiction allows writers to use texture – by truly engaging the senses – and explore possibilities, hopes, and fears in a uniquely present manner.

Past Tense or Present Tense: Which Works Best for Your Story?

Common Present Tense Genres

Memoirs, Young Adult, Literary Fiction, and many of the traditional genres are also being written in present tense.

The present tense is edgier. The reader has to agree to live the journey moment by moment with the characters. There is no guarantee that the story will even have an ending. It is easier to use unreliable narrators in the present tense. Many readers are uncomfortable with present tense stories.

  1. Young Adult. Present tense works well in Young Adult fiction because it mirrors how younger readers often experience stories—viscerally and in the moment. It is accepted by younger readers, and it is in fact even the norm with many young adult readers. Examples: The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, the Divergent series by Veronica Roth, and The Maze Runner by James Dashner. This may have something to do with being brought up on a diet of television and film where everything is experienced with the characters.
  2. New Adult. Present tense is especially effective in new adult fiction because the genre often centres on intense emotional experiences, rapid personal change, and living fully in the moment. It heightens attraction, heartbreak, anxiety, and personal discovery, which are all important in new adult fiction. Examples: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros, A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
  3. Memoirs. It is also effective with memoirs. Readers feel as if they are experiencing the writer’s story in real time. The immediacy and rawness allows the writer to create intense emotional reactions in the reader. It can also intensify vulnerability, making reflective or traumatic moments feel more real.
  4. Literary Fiction. In literary fiction, present tense is often used to heighten psychological depth and focus attention on perception rather than retrospect. In literary fiction, writers like Hilary Mantel, Emma Donoghue, and John Updike have used present tense to great effect. Examples:
    • Wolf Hall won the Booker prize in 2009. Mantel says that she put the camera behind Cromwell’s eyes, and wrote it as she saw it. Many literary authors have done the same thing (David Mitchell‘s The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Kevin Barry‘s Beatlebone) – writing about the historical past in present tense seems surreal and novel and seems to garner literary acclaim.
    • Five-year-old Jack from Emma Donoghue’s Room lives, as most young children do, in the present. It would have been difficult to tell the story from his viewpoint in any other way.
    • In Rabbit, Run, John Updike said, ‘I liked writing in the present tense. You can move between minds, between thoughts and objects and events with a curious ease not available to the past tense. I don’t know if it is clear to the reader as it is to the person writing, but there are kinds of poetry, kinds of music you can strike off in the present tense.’

Common Past Tense Genres

You can use the past tense in any genre. It is the easiest way to tell a story, because it places it in a time frame. It has already happened and it gives the reader a sense of comfort that somebody has lived to tell the tale. Most of us, including many older readers, are happiest with this format.

  1. Crime Genre Fiction. Past tense works well for crime/thriller/suspense novels. Writers can use more than one viewpoint and manipulate time more easily. These novels appeal to a large audience and the majority of readers prefer reading in past tense. Example: The Harry Bosch novels by Michael Connelly
  2. Women’s Fiction. Women’s fiction is often written in past tense because it tends to feel more natural, emotionally reflective, and smoother for relationship-driven storytelling. It also handles multiple timelines and backstory more easily. Examples: The Help by Kathryn Stockett, The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  3. Children’s Fiction. Children younger than 12 are more comfortable when they know that a story has already happened. Younger children find present tense stressful as they cannot separate fiction and reality.
  4. Westerns. Past tense suits Westerns because the genre often feels like a legendary tale or historical story being told after the events happened. It works especially well for frontier settings, long journeys, and gritty action while reinforcing the timeless, storytelling quality of the genre. Example: Shane by Jack Shaefer
  5. Horror. Traditional and literary horror usually uses past tense because it feels immersive, builds atmosphere gradually, and enhances the genre’s dark storytelling tone. Gothic horror is also told in past tense. Example: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Viewpoint and Tense

Sometimes your choice of viewpoint dictates your choice of tense. Stories can be written in first, second, or third person. Read my post, Mastering Point Of View In Writing, to find out more.

The Last Word

Ultimately, neither past nor present tense is better. Different tenses suit different stories, genres, and writing styles. The right choice depends on the kind of experience you want to create and should also reflect the personality and perspective of your main viewpoint character.


by Amanda Patterson
© Amanda Patterson

Posted on: 29th March 2016
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