: Re: Use past or present tense for lasting fact I'm writing a story in present tense. One sentence is a little tricky for me, and I don't know if I should use past or present tense: Present

First of all, "withheld" means "held something back from," as in "she withheld the cookies from her child" or "he withheld the information from Congress." So it doesn't mean "hold up to" a big storm. The word you want is "survive."
Second, Alex almost has it right in his second example. You have a few options in the past tense:

The tree was so massive it could have survived the strongest storm. ("The strongest storm" has happened, but we don't know whether the tree was exposed to it. If it was, then clearly it survived.)
The tree was so massive it could survive the strongest storm. (Hypothetical: "The strongest storm" hasn't happened. We project that the tree could survive it.)

In present tense:

The tree is so massive it could survive the strongest storm. (Hypothetical again. Even if we are in the present, the strongest storm is in the future.)

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: No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another

@Debbie451

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: If you can't boil down your novel into a logline (or "elevator pitch," which is how I learned it), then you may actually have a problem with your novel. You've provided the structure of

@Debbie451

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: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

@Debbie451

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: In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a

: Re: Use past or present tense for lasting fact I'm writing a story in present tense. One sentence is a little tricky for me, and I don't know if I should use past or present tense: Present

More posts by @Debbie451

: No, you can only do that if you're making some sort of break or shift in narrative style. If the story switches to a dream, for instance, or if the characters enter a Fae realm or another

: If you can't boil down your novel into a logline (or "elevator pitch," which is how I learned it), then you may actually have a problem with your novel. You've provided the structure of

: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

: In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a

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