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Cass’s body arched violently off of the bed, his mouth open and
shrieking, arms flailing outward to protect from unseen invaders. The
doctors, still dressed in pajamas, are stunned, jaws loose. An orderly
is the first to react, rushing to Michael and heaving the frightened
boy off of his bed and away from the spasming teen across the room.
Children are out of bed, crowding around the glass plates in their
doors to watch.
Doctors kick into action, scuttling forward like a pack of robe-strewn
mice. A petite female rushes from the room in search of anesthesia and
larger men and women attempt to flatten the boy’s limbs to the
mattress, pressing his back down before Cassie can break something.
Break himself. And then the floor glows. A dark violet-pink that
had everyone scurrying back away. The boy may be important, but not
more so than their own lives, after all, he’s practically unfixable.
So basically, should I be making sure all words like is/are, was/were and has/had are all the same?
Like: "And then the floor glows. A dark violet-pink that had everyone scurrying back away. The boy may have been important, but not more so than their own lives, after all, he was practically unfixable."
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No, it is not correct. Yes, all the verbs should be the same tense. That means not just 'is'/'are' but 'arches', 'glows', 'kick', 'rushes' etc.
Present tense:
Cass’s body arches violently off of the bed, his mouth open and shrieking, arms flailing outward to protect from unseen invaders. The doctors, still dressed in pajamas, are stunned, jaws loose. An orderly is the first to react, rushing to Michael and heaving the frightened boy off of his bed and away from the spasming teen across the room. Children are out of bed, crowding around the glass plates in their doors to watch.
Past Tense:
Cass’s body arched violently off of the bed, his mouth open and shrieking, arms flailing outward to protect from unseen invaders. The doctors, still dressed in pajamas, were stunned, jaws loose. An orderly was the first to react, rushing to Michael and heaving the frightened boy off of his bed and away from the spasming teen across the room. Children were out of bed, crowding around the glass plates in their doors to watch.
It's common in some forms of colloquial speech to mix tenses when storytelling, especially to emphasise certain actions, but this is definitely wrong when writing.
For example:
So he said 'blah,' and then I said, 'whatever,' then he punches me in the face!
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