: Re: Switching between past tense and historical present tense When is it appropriate to switch between past tense and historical present tense when telling a story in first person? Should we try

@BetL639

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Changing the tense in a text can be pretty jarring for the reader. It will most likely come across as a grammatical error/omission.

I can only come up with two reasons I would use different tense in a text:

Flashbacks

If your main narrative is in one tense, changing to another for a flashback makes it easier for the reader to realize there has been a jump in time (apart from everything else you should do to mark the beginning and end of a flashback).

Different POVs

If you have more than one POV character in the story you might write them in different tenses, however, then I recommend only one POV per scene (i.e. no tense-changes in a scene unless it's for a flashback).

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