The present in the past

A good number of books these days are written in past tense. Grammatically, tense refers to the verbs used. However, when writing in past tense, writers should also pay attention to some other non-verb words. In particular, adverbs that deal with time.

 Before I go any further, I want to clarify that this is not usually a rule found in grammar style guides. However, it’s something editors and writers discuss (although not everyone agrees) and something I pay attention to while editing. Ultimately, my goal in editing is to remove anything that might become a distraction for readers. And this is something that readers often find distracting (though some readers won’t be bothered by it at all).

 Now

Some time adverbs have a “present tense” feel to them so that when they are used with a past tense verb, some dissonance can occur. For example, look at this sentence:

She washed her hair now.

Does that strike you as odd? It does me. “Now” is something happening in the moment, the present, so how can she have done something in the past now? This sentence really doesn’t even need an adverb. It’s perfectly fine to write the following:

She washed her hair.

When I’m editing, I watch for the word “now” and remove it when it seems the sentence works better without it. If a time marker does seem to be needed, I revise it to something like “at that time” or “at that moment.”

Even so, sometimes “now” is actually the best word to use, especially when it’s in a comparison. For example, the following sentence works better using “now” than one of the other options:

She used to wash her hair once a week but she washed it every day now.

Bottom line: If you can avoid using the word “now” in a past tense narrative, do so. But if avoiding it makes the sentence awkward or if “now” really does help clarify the meaning, it’s okay to use it. This is truly one of those case-by-case basis items.

Other time adverbs

Some other time adverbs related to the present tense can also feel awkward to the reader and should be replaced with words or phrases that don’t feel as much like present tense. Here are some examples and some suggestions for replacement words/phrases:

today —> that day, the same day

tomorrow —> the next day, the following day

yesterday —> the previous day, the day before

tonight —> that night

It’s not a time adverb, but I also watch out for the place adverb “here” which also doesn’t always seem to fit in a past tense narrative. Most of the time, just changing it to “there” works.

Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. This is one of those stylistic choices that ultimately is up to each individual author. But because it could cause some readers to pause while reading these sentences, my recommendation is to help out your readers and avoid this past/present dissonance whenever possible.