: Switching from past to present tense? I'm thinking of writing a novel where my character narrates flashbacks through the hardest times of his life written in past tense, leading up to the present

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One can debate the validity of the flashback technique, as Lauren Ipsum and Tylerharms do in the comments on another answer. Like many techniques, it can be done well and it can be done lamely.

(Oh, how I hate movies that start out with a character brooding over the scene of the disaster -- whether it's the end of his marriage or the end of the world or whatever -- and then he stares soulfully at the camera and says, "Let me remember, how did it all begin ..." Lame lame lame!!)

What's the difference between a good use of flashbacks and a lame use of flashbacks? I wish I knew simple criteria I could give.

One point: Make it clear to the reader what's the present and what's a flashback. I've read many books where I got really confused because it wasn't clear what was what. I'd be halfway through a scene before I realized it was a flashback. I recall one book where I was halfway through the book before I realized that it was all a flashback from the first scene. Whether that's a simple, "Twenty years ago ..." or something more artistic, make it obvious.

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I think that beginning with a series of flashbacks might be difficult for the reader to follow if there was no sense of what they are moving towards. This might not be exactly what you are doing, but in any case my advice would be to consider an in medias res structure. Instead of narrating consecutive flashbacks leading up to the present, begin with a moment just before the climax in present tense, and then revert to flashbacks. This introduces the narrator, introduces the conflict, and gives some context to the flashbacks. It also gives the reader added motivation to figure out what links the flashbacks. The key when using flashbacks of any kind, though, is in the effectiveness of the narrative transitions into and out of the present.

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That actually might be really interesting. Particularly if you label the flashbacks as "1958" or "Forty years ago," and then the present is "now" or "Present day." And if your flashbacks get closer together (one year ago, six months ago, four months ago, six weeks ago, three weeks ago, one week ago, three days ago, thirty-six hours ago...) and speed up, that adds its own tension.

I say go for it and see if you can make it work. At worst, if it fails, you'll only have to change the last part to past tense.

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