While writing a paper for my English class, I couldn't decided whether past or past perfect tense was needed. It's basically about how a guy whose house is destroyed because the government wants to build a freeway over it:
Walking towards where my house was built, I see that only my mailbox had survived the wreckage, while I try to salvage all I could. Looking through my mail, I see a letter from the government telling me kindly that they are going to build a freeway where my house had once stood. Attached is a sum of money reimbursing my devastating loss, but it could not account for the number of generations who had once lived there.
Basically, I can't decide if there following are correct. It's supposed to be in present tense. (The guy is currently standing at the wreckage.)
1) "had survived"
2) try to salvage all I "could"
3) where my house "had once stood"
4) but it "could" not account
5) number of generations who "had once lived" there
Please provide some sort of explanation. Thanks!
Best Answer
You say that you want to cast your narrative in the present tense.
Consequently, these actions and perceptions —your guy's— occur in the “narrative present”, and so should be in the present tense:
This, since it started in the past but continues into the narrative present, could be in either the present or present perfect:
The rest are events or states which occurred before the narrative present and therefore should be in simple past:
Put them together:
You use past perfect only if you are locating an action at some time before a specific event in the past—for instance, if you cast your narrative in the past, the pasts in the last version would become past perfects:
*Yes, I know this is called future tense — but it's formed here with a present-tense auxiliary. I would call the auxiliary's tense non-past and the construction a future mode, but I'm eccentric.
†Actually, nobody will object if you cast these in the simple past, since the adverb once effectively locates the standing before the narrative past.