Bonjour!
So, my dear friends, again I apologize for a late update. I will say, however, that my excuse is pretty valid. It takes a long time to pack up all of your belongings to move out-of-state to college.
Yeah.
I'm pretty dang scared, nervous, excited, and I'm leaving today. Today.
Ugh, bottom of the social food-chain once again.
So to keep my mind off of potentially moving away from home and taking care of myself with little money (yay) I decided to write this chapter.
"So LBC," you ask. "What do you have planned for us today while procrastinate facing your future?"
I'm glad you asked!
Tenses!
[The Past and the Present]
I'm not entirely sure how long this chapter is going to be. So let's just roll with it, shall we?
B-T-Dubs, I'm doing this chapter to fulfill a request left by a lovely Danny-Shells, a very nice person and fellow Sherlockian, like myself.
And, you know, this is actually a good topic to talk about.
Let's get started, good friends.
Past Tense
Now, this can get a little tricky, and it might be so confusing that I probably won't be able to explain it very well, so you might need to turn to your English teacher [or the internet] for help. But you know what? I'm gonna try anyway. Please don't shoot me if it doesn't make sense or if I'm wrong. Thank ye kindly.
Past tense is used to describe things that happened in the past. Duh. There are a couple different types of Past Tense (ugh) but I'm first going to focus on the Simple Past.
The Simple Past is basically having a verb and adding 'ed' at the end, such as danced, sewed, and jumped. And then those are those annoying irregular verbs where you don't add 'ed' at the end, like sang, ran, and bought. But, the similarity between the irregular and 'ed' verbs is, you know, they describe an action that happened in the past.
She danced.
He sewed.
The dog jumped over the fence.
She sang a song.
They ran around the track.
I bought new shoes yesterday.
All of those examples were things that happened in the past. Not all of them say exactly when in the past it happened, but it happened in the past all the same.
Make sense?
Kinda?
Okay.
For examples of books written in past tense, Harry Potter and PJO are the ones, and I'm gonna pull an example from PJO to show a passage written in past tense:
I looked over at the white van. Everybody was getting out. Grover pointed toward one of the big buildings lining the Mall. Thalia nodded, and the four of them trudged off into the cold wind.
I know this is past tense because of the 'ed' verbs. Looked, pointed, nodded, trudged. Percy is describing what he's seeing, but in the past tense.
I still hope you guys get it. This chapter is wordy.
The next type of the past tense is called Past Continuous. This is self-explanatory - it describes things that happened in the past continuously. You know, it kept happening, or it happened over and over. Not just happening once like Simple Past. This uses the past tense of be (was/were) and adding an 'ing' at the end of a verb, such as "my head was aching".
Was is the past tense of be, and aching is the past tense of ache.
Be is a weird verb. The past tenses of be are was and were. Was is used for singular, such as talking about yourself or someone else, and were is used for plural—talking about multiple people or things.
Examples!
When I came home from school, my mom was doing the dishes.
I was writing a letter to my friend.
They were meeting at the soccer field.
The dogs were playing in the grass.
Get it?
Kinda?
Moving on.
Then there's the Past Perfect. Yay. Past Perfect uses the verb had and then the verb (in past tense) you want.
I had finished all of my chores.
I had bought a new pair of shoes.
But then Past Perfect and Past Continuous decided to have an affair, and that's where we get the Past Perfect Continuous. Say that five times fast. PPC meshes the rules together, so you use had, chuck in a been, and then the ing at the end of the verb.
I had been living in Canada all of my life.
It had been raining for hours.
Phew.
I think that's all I'm going to say for Past Tense. My brain now hurts just thinking about it.
Present Tense
Okay.
I can do this.
Examples of books written in Present Tense would be the Hunger Games and the Matched series. I personally prefer the Past Tense, just because that's what I normally read and what I use to write my own stuff, but really, if you like Present Tense more, go for it.
An example of the Present Tense from Matched, if you please:
The Officer blows his whistle to dismiss us. I walk away, staying slightly separate from everyone else. I've walked a few steps when I hear Ky behind me.
"Anything you want to ask me?" he asks softly.
I shake my head no, turn my face away. He doesn't have any words for me.
I know that this is Present Tense because of the verbs. Blows, walk, I've, hear, asks, shake, turn. If I was writing in Past Tense, the verbs would be blew, walked, I'd, heard, asked, shook, turning. (both regular and irregular verbs, if you caught that)
Getting it so far?
Good.
And here we go.
Present Simple. Present Simple uses the raw verb. Work, run, play, brush, throw, murder, suffocate, and so on.
I work at McDonalds
I run the 100 meter dash
I play soccer
I brush my hair
I throw my stuff into a suitcase
I murder Moffat
He suffocates
Yeah.
Remember, when you're talking about yourself, use the raw verb. When you're talking about someone/something else, add an 's' at the end of the verb—like how I said "He suffocates." Because, you know, Moffat has probably ended my will to live right now.
We'll talk about that later.
Present Continuous is the same thing as Past Continuous, except you—obviously—use the present tense of 'be' (are/is/always) instead of past tense.
She is smacking her boyfriend for cheating on her.
Shut up. The kids are sleeping.
You are always reading.
My French is improving.
Moffat is ruining my life.
Pretty easy, no? Yes?
Moving on.
Present Perfect is using the present use of the verb have (have/has) and the past participle of a verb, and Present Perfect Continuous is chucking in a been after the have/has and using the 'ing' form of a verb.
They have sung their song—Present Perfect
It has been raining for ages—Present Perfect Continuous
I think so, anyway.
Watch Your Tenses
Okay, I'm turning away from explaining it all and I'm now going to rant a little. Do not switch from past to present. Do not switch from past to present. Do not switch from PAST to PRESENT.
These tenses are two completely different things and you can NOT swap between the two randomly in the chapter. It's like water and oil. They don't mix.
This, however, can be acceptable when talking about it from different character's points of view, like Annabeth being first person present tense, and Percy being third person past tense, but that's it.
I'm going to be nice and give an example:
Annabeth POV
I walk away from the pavilion to the Athena cabin. I avoid the Apollo cabins basketballs and quickly sprint inside. After I slam the door shut, I pore over my blueprints and I try to think of a new design for Aphrodite's new gazebo. Someone suddenly knocks on the door, and I open it. It is Percy, and he leans against the side of the doorframe.
"Whatcha up to?" he asks.
"Nothing," I reply. "Just working on some things for Olympus."
Percy POV
"Sweet," Percy said. "Can I come in?"
"Sure." Annabeth moved out of the way and Percy strode inside.
"You could really clean up this place. Aren't you in charge of that this week?"
Annabeth scowled. "If you don't like it you can leave."
Percy smirked. "Nah. I want to be with you."
Annabeth rolled her eyes and swept her hair into a ponytail, turned her back to him, and bent over the blueprints once more.
Okay, so writing in present tense is just really hard for me. So sorry if Annabeth's blurb just sucked. It's awkward to read, I know. But I think you get the idea. Annabeth is present tense, and Percy is past. Do NOT do this:
Percy carefully looped his fingers in between Annabeth's and squeezed her hand. She glanced up at him, smiled, and looked back at the movie.
"What do you think about our date so far?" Percy whispered.
Annabeth scowls. "Percy, shut up," she says. "I can't hear."
Percy rolls his eyes and grabs a few more pieces of popcorn, promptly placing them in his mouth.
"Whatever, Wise Girl," Percy said, his mouth full. "How many times have you seen this movie?"
"Seven," Annabeth replies. "And I can watch Inception as many times as I want."
So friends. How many times did I switch tenses?
Three times.
I started in Past, swapped to Present with Annabeth's response, returned to Past, and then back to Present for the last line.
Remember, said is different from says. Asked is different from asks. So please. Watch your tenses. Choose one and stick with it.
Anyway, I'm really sorry if this chapter was just confusing. It makes sense to me because, uh, I wrote it and I don't really have a problem of mixing the two up, but I truly apologize if everything just glazed over. If you still need help, Google is your friend. Or your English teacher. School has started by now, yes?
Phew, four pages in Word single spaced. I need to finish packing.
I'll see you all on the next update, don't you worry. Although, I don't know when it will be. I'll be getting settled for a couple weeks, getting used to my new life and whatever, so it might be a while. Classes start for me on Monday, so I might be in shock because I will now have homework.
Anyway, I'll see you when it comes!
~littlebitclever
P.S. If you were wondering why I was suddenly acting all hostile towards Moffat in the middle of the chapter, I took a break writing this and watched the Angels Take Manhattan (Doctor Who episode) and I'm still currently in denial. The Ponds definitely were my favorite companions, and I just...
Watch out. If you follow me, there might be a Doctor Who fanfic coming out about that episode and i'm just oign to cr y in the fetal positoin now...
