# Tense and Person of the Verb

## Person of the Verb

### First Person (I / We)
The narrator is a character. Everything is filtered through their perception.

Historical evolution: from Cicero's letters and medieval diaries through the epistolary novel (Richardson, Austen) to the modern first-person novel. First person is often assumed to be the simplest mode, but it introduces subtle traps — especially the tendency to make every character sound alike.

### Third Person (He / She / They)
The most common and least troublesome mode. Third person ranges from extremely intimate (limited third — practically first person with different pronouns) to extremely distant (detached narrator — practically a camera).

**Limited third** is restricted to the perceptions, knowledge, feelings, and memories of one character. Technically very close to first person. Switching between limited-third viewpoint characters is possible but requires awareness.

### Second Person (You)
Rare in fiction. Creates an imperative, immersive quality. Can feel gimmicky if sustained too long. Works well in short bursts or in genres where it serves a specific purpose.

## Tenses of the Verb

### Past Tense
The default narrative tense throughout most of literary history. Gives continuous access to before and after — minds move around easily as they normally do.

**Metaphor:** Sunlight — illuminates everything, allows the eye to roam freely across time and space.

**Advantages:**
- Natural access to memory, reflection, foreshadowing
- Allows the narrator to know more than the character knew at the time
- The full range of verb forms is available
- Does not create artificial urgency

### Present Tense
Dominant in contemporary fiction for the past thirty to forty years. Narrower in field of vision — necessarily focused on action in a single time and place.

**Metaphor:** A narrow-beam flashlight — intense illumination of one spot, darkness everywhere else.

**Advantages:**
- Immediacy — the reader experiences events as they unfold
- Creates inherent urgency ("a permanent artificial emergency")
- Can be exactly right for fast-paced action or a character whose engine runs hot
- Prevents the narrator from reflecting at length (which can be a feature or a bug)

**Dangers:**
- Many writers use it from fashion rather than conscious choice
- If you always write in present tense, some verb forms may atrophy
- Sustained present tense can feel relentless — no breathing room
- Flashbacks and memory become technically awkward

### Two-Timing
Switching between past and present tense without awareness or signal is one of the most common and disorienting errors in contemporary prose. A passage that drifts from past to present and back within a paragraph without reason is simply broken.

**The rule:** Every tense shift must be deliberate and must serve the story. If switching tenses, the shift should be clear enough that the reader understands they've moved in time.

### Choosing Tense

Questions to ask:
- Does the story need access to before and after? → Past tense
- Does the story need the claustrophobic intensity of the present moment? → Present tense
- Is the narrator looking back on events with the knowledge of what happened? → Past tense
- Is the narrator experiencing events without foreknowledge? → Either works, but present intensifies the effect
- Are there multiple timelines that need to be distinguished? → Tense shifts can serve this, but must be deliberate

## The Passive Voice

### What It Actually Is
The passive voice reverses the normal subject-verb-object order so that the object of the action becomes the grammatical subject.

- **Active:** "The dog bit the man"
- **Passive:** "The man was bitten by the dog"

### The Fake Rule
"Never use the passive voice" is not a real rule. The passive is a legitimate construction with specific uses.

### When the Passive Is Appropriate
- When the agent is unknown: "The window was broken during the night"
- When the agent is less important than the action or result: "The cathedral was completed in 1247"
- When the passive creates the right rhythm: sometimes the sentence simply sounds better
- When the passive creates emphasis: "The city was destroyed" emphasises the city; "An earthquake destroyed the city" emphasises the earthquake

### When to Guard Against It
Passive voice that seeps in from academic, bureaucratic, or business English to obscure agency and responsibility:
- "Mistakes were made" — by whom?
- "It was determined that..." — by whom?
- "The decision was reached to..." — by whom?

This evasive passive is worth eliminating. The useful passive is worth keeping.
