Understanding Past Continuous and Past Perfect Verb Tenses
By Linda Yezak
For some reason,
certain words have landed on someone's "hit list" and consequently
have become taboo—to the detriment of clarity in our writing. I don't know who
that "someone" is or why anyone should pay attention to his opinion,
but editors who understand grammar wisely ignore him.
One of the words
currently cloaked in shame is "was." To a certain extent, I
understand this. Relying on it is a sign of laziness. But let's take a look at
it. One of the two sentences below is a surefire example of lazy writing. Guess
which:
- A - As I watched, I realized he was strong as an ox.
- B - When I saw him, he was sitting by Sally.
Gold star to
whoever said A.
Past Continuous
"He was
strong as an ox" is telling, and adding the simile—especially a cliché—doesn't
help. That sentence is a sign of lazy writing. "As I watched, he hefted a
one-ton Ford pickup with his bare hands" illustrates how strong he is and
doesn't contain a single "was."
Example B,
however, uses the past continuous (or past progressive) verb tense. It
illustrates ongoing action. To use simple past tense in this sentence changes
the meaning: "When I saw him, he sat by Sally" means the main
character watched him assume the seat beside Sally. "When I saw him, he
was sitting by Sally" means he had already assumed the seat and was still
there when the main character saw him.
Okay, granted,
that seems like a fine line. The site edufind.com
describes it better: "The past
continuous describes actions or events in a time before now, which began in the
past and was still going on at the time of speaking. In other words, it
expresses an unfinished or incomplete action in the past."
It is used:
- often to describe the background in a story written in the past tense, e.g. "The sun was shining and the birds were singing as the elephant came out of the jungle. The other animals were relaxing in the shade of the trees, but the elephant moved very quickly."
- to describe an unfinished action that was interrupted by another event or action: "I was having a beautiful dream when the alarm clock rang."
Past continuous
is a valid verb tense and can't help it if "was" is part of its
makeup. Be discriminating about the "was" verbs you're trying to
obliterate from your work.
Past Perfect
Authors
frequently write in past tense, but when they want to illustrate something that
is further past in their story's history than simple "past," they
should use the "past perfect" tense—which, unfortunately, is also on
the hit list. This is another one I can understand to a certain extent. Reading
that a character "had" done this and "had" done that through
several paragraphs can be cumbersome, but leaving it out entirely can confuse
the timeline in the reader's mind.
If you're doing
a brief history, a brief backstory, use past perfect: When she first
got there, she had expected five-star treatment since she was a movie star.
Instead, she'd been treated as if she were no one special. Now, she
realized they had given her special treatment—they’d treated her as if she were
family.
As short as this
is, the past perfect tense isn't bothersome, and it helps to use contractions
to cut down on the "hads." To stretch this into several paragraphs of
backstory, however, the past perfect tense would be a pain.
The secret is to
ground your reader in the backstory by using past perfect in the first several
lines and revert to past tense until the last several lines. Toward the end of
the backstory, use past perfect again to cue the reader that you're ending the
backstory and preparing to re-enter "story present" (which, of
course, is told in past tense. Can we get any more confusing?).
But the best
thing to do with long backstory passages is to determine whether the reader
really needs to know what you're about to dump on her and whether there is a
better way to present it—a topic better left to another post.
Don't deprive
yourself of the various verb tenses, which are some of the tools we authors
have to present our stories, just because some nameless someone has declared
war on certain words. "Had" and "was," used in combination
with other verbs, help to provide clarity in your work, and shouldn't be shunned
indiscriminately.
Two sites that
can help tremendously with verbs are conjugation.com and edufind.com. Make
the most of 'em!
(Photos courtesy of Blogpiks.com and Stuart Miles.)
TWEETABLE
Linda W. Yezak lives with her husband and
their funky feline, PB, in a forest in deep East Texas, where tall tales abound
and exaggeration is an art form. She has a deep and abiding love for her Lord,
her family, and salted caramel. And coffee—with a caramel creamer. Author of
award-winning books and short stories, she didn't begin writing professionally
until she turned fifty. Taking on a new career every half century is a good
thing.
Website: http://lindawyezak.com
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Excellent article, Linda! Thank you for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment!
DeleteOh thank you! This clarifies and allows me not to feel guilty when I use the word, was, in the correct way. Whew!
ReplyDeleteGlad it helped to clarify!
Delete