To prevent readers from becoming confused about the sequence of actions in time, writers use a combination of verb tenses and transitional words and phrases related to time. Although writing about your remembered event in the present tense can give your narrative a sense of immediacy, writing about the event itself in the past tense will make it easier to manage your other tenses. For example, you may need to talk about what happened before the event took place or how you feel about the event now, as Desmond-Harris does here:

Managing the tenses for these breaks from the timeline can be tough if you aren’t already writing most of the story in the past tense. Try rewriting the preceding sentence with the event described in the present tense: “I mourn Tupac’s death, and . . .” Can you see how to do it? Most writers write about past events in the past tense because it makes these moves much easier.

Cite calendar or clock time to establish when the event took place and help readers follow the action over time. Writers often situate the event in terms of the date or time. Brandt, for example, establishes in the opening paragraph that the event occurred when she went to the mall for “a day of last-minute Christmas shopping.” Dillard also identifies when the event took place and how old she was at the time: “On one weekday morning after Christmas. . . . I was seven.” (pars. 3, 4).

Use transitions of time, such as after, before, in the meantime, and simultaneously, to help readers follow a sequence of actions. In the following example, when signals that one action followed another:

In the following example, as indicates that the first action occurred at the same time as the second action.