: Past tense writing troubles. Specifically the word "Now" I want to say: "Now I was on the plane with my best friend." But don't "Now" and "was" contradict each other? And I specifically want

Vote Up Vote Down

'Now' can be used with the past tense to create a sense of immediacy or to refere to a point in a series of events, akin to 'then'. The sentence you provide sounds perfectly correct to me.

Check the 3rd and 4th meaning on the free dictionary

On an afterthought, why do you claim you can't write in the past? It's far easier than doing it in the present and much more intuitive, not to say it usually yields better results. Is it because you keep changing to the present? Simply being aware of that problem, studying verb tenses (in order to fully understand them) and practising should be enough for you to overcome the difficulty and, at the same time, improving your writing style.

(0)

Vote Up Vote Down

There are two uses for "now". One means the present moment, and it's hard to use in the past tense. I mean, you could write:

"You have to do it now," I told her.

And even

I told her now was the time to act.

But not

Now I was on the plane.

Instead, you can use phrases like

at that time (if you have already set up the time period)
once (or even once upon a time)
5 years ago
in the spring of my 25th year
shortly after my father died
several years before this trip

and so on. If none of them fit, why do you want to start the sentence with "Now"? It's possible you want the second use for now, which is to start a sentence with it to get people's attention, or as part of some set phrases:

Now look here, young man, I expect you to obey me!
Now now, that's just too extreme.
Now and then I get lonely
Now what?
Now this is new!

You can just keep these uses without worrying.

(0)