In addition to time markers like calendar time and temporal transitions, writers use verb tense to represent action in writing and to help readers understand when each action occurred in relation to other actions.
Onetime Events Writers typically use the past tense to represent onetime events that began and ended in the past. Here is a brief passage from a remembered-person essay by Amy Wu. In addition to the temporal transitions once and when in the opening sentence, which let readers know that this particular event occurred many years earlier, the writer also uses simple past-tense verbs (highlighted):
Once, when I was 5 or 6, I interrupted my mother during a dinner with her friends and told her that I disliked the meal. My mother’s eyes transformed from serene pools of blackness into stormy balls of fire. “Quiet!” she hissed, “do you not know that silent waters run deep?”
––AMY WU, “A Different Kind of Mother”
Wu uses the simple past tense to indicate that actions occurred in a linear sequence.
In the next example, by Chang-Rae Lee, we see how verb tense can be used to show more complicated relationships between past actions that occurred at different times in the past:
When Uncle Chul amassed the war chest he needed to open the wholesale business he had hoped for, he moved away from New York.
––CHANG-RAE LEE, “Uncle Chul Gets Rich”
Lee employs both the simple past tense (amassed, needed, moved) and the past perfect tense (had hoped).
You do not have to know that amassed is simple past tense and had hoped is past perfect tense to know that the uncle’s hopes came before the money was amassed. In fact, most readers of English can understand complicated combinations of tenses without knowing their names.
Let us look at another verb tense combination used frequently in narrative: the simple past and the past progressive:
WhenDinah Washington was leaving with some friends, I overheard someone say she was on her way to the Savoy Ballroom where Lionel Hampton was appearing that night—she was then Hamp’s vocalist.
––MALCOLM X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Malcolm X uses the simple past tense (overheard, was) and the past progressive tense (was leaving, was appearing).
This combination of tenses plus the temporal transition when shows that the two actions occurred at the same time in the past. The first action (“Dinah Washington was leaving”) continued during the period that the second action (“I overheard”) occurred.
Occasionally, writers use the present instead of the past tense to narrate onetime events. Process narratives and profiles typically use the present tense to give the story a sense of “you are there” immediacy:
Slowly, the dank barroom fills with grease-smeared mechanics from the truck stop up the road and farmers straight from the fields, the soles of their brogans thick with dirt clods. A few weary souls make their way over from the nearby sawmill. I sit alone at the bar, one empty bottle of Bud in front of me, a second in my hand. I drain the beer, order a third, and stare down at the pink juice spreading outward from a crumpled foil pouch and onto the bar.
I’m not leaving until I eat this thing, I tell myself.
––JOHN T. EDGE, “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing”
Edge uses present-tense verbs to give readers a sense that they are in the room with him.
Recurring Events Verb tense, usually combined with temporal transitions, can also help writers narrate events that occurred routinely:
Many times, walking home from work, I would see some unknowing soul venture across that intersection against the light and then freeze in horror when he saw the cars ripping out of the tunnel toward him. . . . Suddenly, the human reflex would take over, and the pedestrian would jackknife first one way, then another, arms flaying the empty air, and often the car would literally skim the man, brushing by him so close it would touch his coat or his tie. . . . On one occasion, feeling sorry for the person who had brushed against the speeding car, I hurried across the intersection after him to cheer him up a little. Catching up with him down by 32nd I said, “That was good legwork, sir. Excellent moves for a big man!” but the man looked at me with an empty expression in his eyes, and then moved away mechanically and trancelike, heading for the nearest bar.
––WILLIE MORRIS, North toward Home
Morris uses the helping verb would along with temporal transitions to show recurring actions.
Notice also that Morris shifts to the simple past tense when he moves from recurring actions to an action that occurred only once. He signals this shift with the temporal transition on one occasion.
Turn to Jean Brandt’s essay, “Calling Home” in Chapter 2, pp. 14–17. Read paragraph 3, and underline the verbs, beginning with got, took, knew, and didn’t want in the first sentence. Brandt uses verb tense to reconstruct her actions and reflect on their effectiveness. Notice also how verb tense helps you follow the sequence of actions Brandt took.