Past, Present, Past Perfect - My Writing Portfolio

Note: C! represents a series of drawings of the same character.

(Copyright H. England 2024)

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5-second Hook: "Realistic Character building is one of the hardest parts to writing, but I’m here to show you tips and tricks that have helped me, and will hopefully help you too!!"	Visual of cartoon version of me smiling. (Or a series of best characters ever?)
Intro: "Hello, my lovelies, it's [Heather] here. Writer and artist (among other things) and this vid is… catharsis for me. Or Therapy. Or both. Anyway, when I was in school (too long ago, but let’s not get into that), I remember wondering why people wrote books in past tense. After all, if it already happened, isn’t that like saying ‘don’t worry, everything’s fine!’ to the audience? (Spoiler, it’s not.) I also remember learning the difference between ‘past tense’ and ‘past perfect tense’. But it never stuck. I don’t know about any of you, and maybe it’s just my ADHD, autistic brain talking, but it never clicked. It just didn’t make sense. Through trial and error (and the unholy amount of books I consumed at that age) I picked up when to use each, but I never really got why… until about five years ago.	C!Various
So, I got my beginning from writing fanfiction. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote for my classes in school and even wrote my own book at fourteen (though I do not like to think back on that monstrosity… shudder), but I didn’t really start ENJOYING writing until fanfiction. There will be a video on this in the future. cough I started with Star Wars. And those first fics… weren’t good. shrug I know it. I own it. It was a step on my journey and I’m proud of them for that reason. (This may tell you how bad my 14-year-old’s self book was.) But in all of that, I didn’t understand tense very well. I wrote mainly in past tense because that was what I’d read books in, but while I did find myself immersed in past tense books, I still didn’t understand why the tense worked. Why Frodo and Sam ‘walked’ to Mordor and it still drew me in. Not until I started reading YA. Enter the Hunger Games.	(Show: “Too Many Years Ago”) C!Various (Need C!shudder and C!cough and C!shrug)
When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim’s warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping. -- The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins	(Show: “Present Tense”) Show Excerpt
Now the Hunger Games wasn’t the first present tense book ever, but it was one of the first that stuck with me. It was the first time I really took a look at how a story could be told through present tense. There are so many reasons why Present Tense is desirable. It gives a much closer experience and can paint a very clear picture from one point of view, ideal for many stories. Especially in the Young Adult genera. But even as I found myself caught up in the book, I kept thinking back to what my Eighth Grade Teacher (Love you Mrs. Porter!) told me about writing: Avoid Be Verbs. There will be a video on this later, but the gist of it is, if you are using be verbs – verbs that don’t show action, only a state of being: Be, is, am, are, was, were – you’re telling, not showing. I later learned there was a lot more to this dealing with passive voice and active voice—again, later videos—but I also noticed that with present tense, avoiding be verbs is almost impossible. To be fair, even in past tense you can’t avoid them entirely in the English Language, but as a general rule of thumb, the more you do, the more your writing should be showing, not telling. Again, not ALWAYS the case, but a good basis to work from. I couldn’t figure out why someone would really want to give that up. There are reasons but in the end (and after much thought) I came to realize it has to do with priorities. IE, Is it more important for you to get one character’s (at a time) point of view without any viewpoint from any other person? (Great for mysteries, by the way.) Is it important for you to really get into a character’s head and how they feel about something? If that’s worth giving up some of the variability and freedom of third person, then go for it. So why does this matter? This isn’t a Point of View vid after all. Well, it’s simple: First person is almost always written in present tense. Which brings me to the books I’d read in Past Tense, and almost exclusively in third person point of view:	C! Various
We can’t talk about Past Tense without talking about this point of view. First Person is almost always in present tense, third is almost always in past. But why? And why does it work? Firstly, clarity. It’s a lot easier to differentiate between ‘he’ and ‘her’ and ‘them’ when talking in third person. It’s also easier to describe the main character and the world around them. Things happening that they don’t see can be described to the reader to up stakes or drama (or clarity) and it has a freedom first person (especially first person present) just doesn’t have. Avoiding be verbs is easier and thus it can also be easier to show something over telling. (Not that telling is something you want to completely avoid, check out Hello Future Me’s video on it in the links below.) It also feels more mature to me, but that could just be how most of the older stories are written in third person past tense and modern YA are often written in first person present tense, but that’s up to you to decide as well. Which would be better for your writing style and story? I think that’s something only you can really decide. Though that doesn’t answer the question of WHY does past tense work? And that’s how we get into Past Perfect Tense.	Show: Past Tense C! various
So, something my high-school self would have greatly benefited from is truly understanding Past Perfect tense. It creates a more complete picture of the English Language (which, let’s be real, we all need—darn it, English!). But that begs the question: What is the difference between Past Tense, and Past Perfect tense? Putting it simply, Past Perfect is completed. Normal past tense isn’t. At least, not necessarily. I already know dozens of you are looking at the screen going, ‘What?’ Which, fair. That’s what happened to me. So here’s an example (because I work off of examples): Joann walked to the store. In this sentence, we know someone named Joann moved. We know how she moved (she walked) and we know where she was headed (the store). She STARTED this motion, but that doesn’t mean she FINISHED it. Compare that to: Joan had walked to the store that morning. In this sentence, Joann completed that walk, and that’s reaffirmed by saying when (that morning). But even if we just simplified it to: “Joann had walked to the store,” it’s still telling us that she started and finished that particular action, (walking to the store). At some point, she had to have arrived according to this sentence. It is a full, finished, completed action. To some, a ‘perfect’ action (I may disagree, but it’s English, whacha gonna do?). Hence, Past perfect. So when we write in past tense, it’s like describing an action a couple of seconds after said action happened. A couple of seconds after it STARTED. “He ran into the swamp, almost immediately losing the light of the campfire, but he didn’t care.” It works because even though he ran (past tense) into the swamp, the action isn’t complete, not until another action nullifies it. If we say he ran into the swamp and right into a tree, we’re bordering on telling, but the action of a human body meeting a tree nullifies the running. And because of that, it feels more complex, and that’s part of why it feels more mature, at least to me. It’s like a ‘next level’ kind of thing. In present tense, ‘He is running into the swamp and right into a tree’ just doesn’t have the same impact. (LOL Impact, see what I did there? Running into a tree and impact and… um… ahem Moving on.)	Show: Past Perfect Tense C! Various Show: Joann walked to the store. C!Various Show: Joann had walked to the store that morning. C!Various Show: Joann had walked to the store. C!Various (need spooky?)
So how do we use this in writing? In character relaying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what does that mean? Well, even in present tense, people tell stories. They talk about memories. They speak of dreams. They relay information. So if someone needs to tell someone else something? Switch to past perfect. If a character thinks back on a memory? Switch to past perfect. If someone tells a story? Well, you get the picture. And again, this isn’t an ‘all or never’ thing. It’s ENGLISH. sigh Sometimes, English. Sometimes. But that being said, EXAMPLE TIME!	C!Various
As Joann walked down the sidewalk towards the store, she thought back on what had happened that morning. Had she imagined it? The creepy sensation of liquid dripping down her spine? The heavy breaths on her neck? Had that truly happened? Had someone been there? Breathing on her?! She shuddered. Here we have her in third person past tense. She’s walking down the street, and then she starts thinking. She remembers. Adding ‘had’ and ‘have’ adds the completion, a sort of certainty. Someone HAD been breathing on her neck, but they no longer were. The action has finished. She HAD felt liquid dripping down her back, but no more. Then we return to more immediate past tense with how she shudders. Like a book end keeping in the memories on a shelf. Okay, that may be getting way to Harry Potterish. ahem This also works in First Person Present Tense: I take a deep breath, trying to calm my beating heart. How could that happen? How could Amy have done that?! She knows how much I hate being scared! I’d talked to her about it before. Multiple times! Yet she still lay on the floor, laughing at me. My hands ball into fists. Here we see the main character take a breath, try to calm themselves down, and then we switch into what happened. Amy scared the MC, despite knowing the MC hates it. She ‘knows’ because that’s still ongoing. They ‘had talked’ because it happened in the past and was over and done with. Then we return to the present with Amy laying on the floor and laughing.	Show Excerpt/example. C!Various
In conclusion: Past, Present, and Past Perfect tenses all have their place, but Past tense can be just as intense as present tense, albeit in different ways. Now, for today’s exercise: Alright, let’s take a character and have them think about something they’ve heard of or experienced but are no longer experiencing. It could be an original character, or a character from an existing franchise. Do you like Percy Jackson? How did one of the gods feel about one particular myth? Do you like Star Wars? How does Obi-wan remember the Clone Wars when on Tatooine? Do you like Lord of the Rings? I mean, Legolas is 2000 years old. Maybe pick an interaction with his father or the dwarves before Smaug took over? Him looking at Gimli (his friend in the future) and comparing himself to how he used to think about the dwarves, maybe? It’s up to you. Just… get writing!	C! various
Conclusion:(for template) Let me know what you’ve come up with in the comments below! Just please keep it short and simple. Links to google docs are always welcome, though I may not be able to get to everyone. Like and subscribe if you enjoyed this, and until next time, goodbye my lovelies!"	C! varoius