Unless you give some indication to the contrary, readers will assume that you’re narrating chronological events in time order, presenting causes before effects, explaining problems before solutions, and so on. In these cases, a simple past (or present or future) tense may be all you need. Sometimes, though, you’ll want to start in the middle of a sequence. In such cases, verb tenses can clarify the sequence, either logically or chronologically.
Consider this paragraph:
My father responded to the world more openly before September 11, 2001. Since then, even though my family is Hindu, not Muslim, we have at times been targets of ethnic discrimination — people making hateful remarks or vandalizing our property. This has hit my father especially hard, because he had believed in America as a land of freedom and opportunity for people like us. And in 2001, my brothers and I were young. I’m sure my father didn’t want us to grow up to be either fearful or angry.
The paragraph starts by dividing the writer’s father’s world into pre- and post-9/11. It goes on to talk about things that have happened since 9/11 and their effect on her father, circles back to how her father felt before 9/11, points out something that was the case at the time of 9/11, and ends with an observation about what at that time her father wanted for the future. And the writer’s verb tenses help readers stay with her the whole way.
The following charts demonstrate the verb tenses that you have at your disposal.
| Simple tenses for regular verbs | ||
| The simple tenses are generally used for facts (The earth revolves around the sun), states of being (I felt great), and recurring actions (I will walk to school every day). | ||
| Formula | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| simple present | verb with no ending (first- and second-person singular and plural, and third-person plural); orverb + -s or -es (third-person singular) | Today I/we/you/they smile.Today I/we/you/they watch.Today he/she smiles.Today he/she watches. |
| simple past | verb + -d or -ed | Yesterday I/we/you/he/she/they smiled.Yesterday I/we/you/he/she/they watched. |
| simple future | will + verb | Tomorrow I/we/you/he/she/they will smile.Tomorrow I/we/you/he/she/they will watch. |
| Perfect tenses for regular verbs | ||
| The perfect tenses are formed with a helping verb or verbs plus a past participle. For regular verbs, the past participle is the same as the simple past. The present perfect places the action in the past (and sometimes continuing into the present). The past perfect places the action in a past earlier than another past time frame. And the future perfect places the action in the future earlier than another future time frame. | ||
| Formula | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| simple present | have/has + past participle | I/we/you/they have watched the show many times.She/he has watched the show many times. |
| past perfect | had + past participle | I/we/you/she/he/they had watched the show before you called. |
| future perfect | will have + past participle | I/we/you/she/he/they will have watched the show ten times by next month. |
| Progressive tenses for regular verbs | ||
| The progressive tenses are formed with a helping verb or verbs plus a present participle. For regular verbs, the present participle is the -ing form of the verb. Progressive tenses are used for actions that continue over time. | ||
| Formula | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| present progressive | am/are/is + present participle | I am watching the show right now.We/you/they are watching the show right now.She/he is watching the show right now. |
| past progressive | was/were + present participle | I/she/he was watching the show last night.We/you/they were watching the show last night. |
| future progressive | will be + present participle | I/we/you/she/he/they will be watching the show when you call. |
| present perfect progressive | have/has been + present participle | I/we/you/they have been watching the show since 2004.She/he has been watching the show since 2004. |
| past perfect progressive | had been + present participle | I/we/you/she/he/they had been watching the show for two years before it won an award. |
| future perfect progressive | will have been + present participle | I/we/you/she/he/they will have been watching the show for nine years next year. |
As shown in the verb tense charts, and as discussed in the section on the subjunctive mood, helping verbs are used along with main verbs to create tenses and moods. A helping verb can be a form of have, do, or be:
have, has, had
do, does, did
be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been
A helping verb can also be one of nine modal auxiliaries:
| can | might | should |
| could | must | will |
| may | shall | would |
Can, may, shall, and will all signal more definite possibilities than could, might, should, and would. For instance, I can check the bus schedule implies that the writer is capable of doing so; I could check the bus schedule is more like an idle thought or an offer to check the schedule if requested. I may go to the party is slightly more definite than I might go.
Could is also the past tense of can: Yesterday I realized I could check the bus schedule. Similarly, might, should, and would are the past-tense forms of may, shall, and will, respectively.