Learn English – past/present tense when telling a story in spoken English

conversationnarrationpast-tensepresent-tensesequence-of-tenses

I've noticed that, in daily conversations, when people are telling stories in the past, they often shift the tense back and forth between the past and the present – even they're native speakers. For example, people might say:

_It was almost 5 a.m. He hadn't come home yet, and his phone was off. I'd been so worried that couldn't sleep at all. Then I heard the door knocked fiercely. Of course it's him. He's got a bottle of whisky in his hand and smelt like a tramp. He stumbles in, ignoring me at all. I was like, stopping him, asking where he's been. He suddenly turns around, shouts at me, pushing me crazily out of my flat and locks me out. I am totally petrified. I've never seen him like that. That's why I asked you if I could come here._

I made up this scenario because I couldn't come up with an exact example I've heard, but it happens all the time. The tenses shift. On one hand, I don't have any problems understanding the story. I wouldn't misinterpret the timeframe just because I heard the tense jump to the present. But on the other hand, I would feel a bit uncomfortable and think, "isn't it wrong?." Furthermore, when it comes to me telling stories, I've been struggling with this usage. I can't judge if this usage is proper, educated, and "correct." Also, if this is proper, are there any rules I should keep in mind so that I won't confuse the listeners? Should I insert something like "I was like" from time to time to remind the listeners that I'm still talking about the story in the past? Or should I shift to the present tense only when I tend to bring the scene more lively to the listeners? Is it a good idea to tell the whole story in present tense once the time has been set, in this case, after the first sentence? Finally, since I feel the present tense is generally easier to be spoken more fluently, would it be recommended to use the present tense throughout the whole story, given I'm sure the timeframe has registered with the listeners?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Best Answer

There is a valid literary technique that will subtly shift from past to present but it is much safer to pick one tense and stick with it.

An example of this device, which I copied from About.com's page on the subject:

Off the road there was what appeared to be a reviewing stand, and I sat there for a few moments, taking in the museum and the cold blue Sunday sky, taking stock, what to do, what to do next, I'd really hate to cancel dinner tonight . . . I'm breathing normally now, it's OK A-OK, I won't even tell my wife, nor Tim, especially not Tim, I feel fit as a fiddle now.

The page linked above has a handful of various thoughts and examples on the subject. It does explicitly note that we often do this sort of thing during informal speech:

What is an example of an unmotivated shift in tense in writing? One example is starting a story in past tense and suddenly shifting into present tense:

Last week I was walking along a street when this man walks up to me and says...

We do this in speech all the time, but in formal writing it's considered to be an error.

(Edward L. Smith and Stephen A. Bernhardt, Writing At Work: Professional Writing Skills for People on the Job. NTC Publishing, 1997)

Related Solutions

Learn English – Past vs. perfect in present-tense narrative

Well, if we're using strictly present tense, then I would think that the latter one needs to be tweaked (but is the correct one):

Jack enters the room and sits down. The fight has drained him, and he needs to rest.

If that was a typo on your part, oops. Otherwise, I'd say that present perfect falls under "present" tense, while past perfect would fall under "past." But more than that, my reasoning behind this is the following quote from a book written entirely in present tense:

What else can he do? There are at least twelve of them. They have made a point of blocking the only exit. They have just announced their intentions. And presumably they are all carrying heat. Besides, this kind of thing is going to happen to him about every ten seconds when he's on the Raft.

Stephenson, Neal (2003-08-26). Snow Crash (Bantam Spectra Book) (Kindle Locations 5311-5313). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Not much in the way of grammar explanation, but there it is. But honestly, it's a matter of your own personal style. Do what feels right for the narrative you're telling.

Learn English – Using Past-tense or Present-tense for verbs

I sympathize with the heartfelt cry, "Does the English language not specify which tense that we must use when sentences are constructed like this?" The answer is sort of. "The English language" is really the speakers of the English language, and they don't always agree with each other, and they're not always consistent, especially in informal communication like the spoken dialog that you're reporting.

The first case you cite is, I think, the result of reported speech (or in this case, thinking.) If Mr. Bruce were reporting his thoughts directly, he would have told the narrator: I thought, "I will tell you when I see you." But Mr. Bruce tells the narrator a report of this thinking: I though I'd [I would] tell you when I saw you." This is called "backshifting the tense" for a past report ("thought"), and it takes "will" to "would," and "see" to "saw."

The second case has almost the same structure, but with a slight syntactic ambiguity about the reported thought. Is it of

    "I will tell you."

or is it of

    "I will tell you before you get to the office."

In the latter case, "get" should be backshifted to got. In the former, the temporal clause is not part of the report, and the verb "get" is in the present, which is used for near-future events.

Of course, that future sense clashes with the past "I thought," but getting the tenses technically correct would require something like, "Before you get to work, I will have thought that I had told you," and no one would say that.

There also is some sense of obligation in the sentence, not only that the speaker would warn the narrator but that he should. In which case, the sentence "I thought I should tell you before you get to work" is fine with the present tense indicating an ongoing situation.

Remember that it's dialog, and people don't always speak "correctly." Perhaps the author deliberately tried to mimic everyday speech, or perhaps he got it "wrong" in the first place.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Learn English – Past vs. perfect in present-tense narrative

Learn English – Using Past-tense or Present-tense for verbs

Related Topic