Ask An Editor: Problem With Tense?
This month, for something different, we’re going to examine a paragraph sent in by a reader. She recently received some feedback which complained about the verb tenses in this paragraph. 
Her dark gaze darted from guest to guest, searching for an appropriate distraction, until her focus skidded to a halt. Her steps slowed and a wintry blast of irritation swept through her, locking her muscles in place. Two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions stepped inside the ballroom. Lord Beaufort on her left, with his ready smile, bore the swarthy, rugged complexion of a Welshman, and in stark contrast, his dark-haired companion wore his brooding English refinement like a shiny badge of honor.
This paragraph illustrates a common error in event sequencing and verbs. There are two ways to analyze this error, and two ways to correct it.
Good, linear prose takes the reader directly from event to event in sequence through time. Yes, sometimes we break that line on purpose, as with a flashback. But in general, we want events to proceed in a direct line through the chronology of events.
In this paragraph, what is the very first event in linear time? Her dark gaze darted from guest to guest, searching for an appropriate distraction. And what comes next in story time? Look closely. It’s not the event in the second half of the first sentence. It’s buried in the middle of the paragraph. Two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions stepped inside the ballroom. This is the second event in the list of events taking place in the paragraph. In chronological order, the second and third sentences are reversed in time. It’s a small jump, but it’s a jump nonetheless.
Because the timeline skids backward, the verb must reflect the time shift, or the reader might get confused. Using the past perfect verb tense clarifies the sequencing. Two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions had stepped inside the ballroom. This is now the past perfect — an event in the past of the storyline’s simple past. (Just as in real life, the present tense reflects “now” and the past reflects “before now,” in most stories, the past tense reflects “story now” and the past perfect reflects “before story now.”)
So, that’s the temporal/chronological analysis and repair. There’s a second way to look at this and fix it, one that examines not the time sequence, but the chain of causation.
Action and reaction are the foundation upon which story is built. Something happens. A character reacts, causing something else to happen, causing a new reaction, causing a new action, and so on until the whole cast is all bollixed up in a crisis. If things happen without cause, we say they’re improperly motivated, or improbable, or contrived. But what do we call it when something is properly motivated, but that motivation isn’t revealed until after the event?
It’s a sequencing error. In larger forms, it can give rise to a logic error. Here, in it’s smaller form, though, when the cause is revealed directly after the reaction, instead of creating a gap in logic, it’s creating a minor stutter in the otherwise smooth flow of the narrative.
So let’s look at the true causative flow of these events. First, she scans the room. Because she scans the room, she sees two men step into the ballroom. Because she sees them, her eyes stop on them. Because her eyes stop on them, she has a shocked reaction and is able to process some descriptive detail related to their appearances.
If you compare this causative chain with the order of events in the paragraph itself, you’ll notice that the same sentence is out of order. Two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions stepped inside the ballroom. In the paragraph, this sentence follows her shocked reaction. In the chain of causation, though, her shocked reaction stems from their appearance. The fix is to move this misplaced sentence into its proper place in the causative chain:
Her dark gaze darted from guest to guest, searching for an appropriate distraction. until her focus skidded to a halt on two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions stepping inside the ballroom. Her steps slowed and a wintry blast of irritation swept through her, locking her muscles in place. Lord Beaufort stood on her left, with his ready smile, bore the swarthy, rugged complexion of a Welshman, and in stark contrast, his dark-haired companion wore his brooding English refinement like a shiny badge of honor.
I had to tinker with it a little to smooth out the sentences — stepped is now stepping, for example. But there’s one very good reason for not making this change. Can you see it? Post your answers in the comments, and we’ll talk it over.
On a side note, I would like to thank everyone who has sent in a question to the Ask an Editor column. You’re giving me lots of good questions to choose from, and I look forward to answering them in upcoming months.
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RU Readers, how about you? Have you encountered problems with use of tenses? Wanna share a few sentences, so Theresa can provide suggestions on how to fix them?
If you have a question for Theresa you can submit it to askaneditor@romanceuniversity.org. Don’t miss this great opportunity to have your concerns addressed by a top-notch editor!
Adrienne talks to Golden Heart finalist Amy Atwell about the twists and turns of pursuing that first book deal.
Theresa’s bio:
After earning degrees in creative writing and law, Theresa Stevens worked as a literary attorney agent for a boutique firm based in Indianapolis where she represented a range of fiction and nonfiction authors. The lure of the courtroom led to a nine-year hiatus from the publishing industry, but now Theresa is back as Managing Editor for Red Sage Publishing, a highly acclaimed small press. Her articles on writing and editing have appeared in numerous publications for writers. Visit her blog at http://edittorrent.blogspot.com/ where she and her co-blogger share their knowledge and hardly ever argue about punctuation.
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Theresa -
I followed your causation logic on the first example. Adrienne can attest to my challenge with the ordering of cause and effect
. But I have to say I’m stumped at the reason it shouldn’t be changed.
One thing though, as a POV issue, would she think of her own gaze as “dark?”
As always, thank you!
K-
morning all..
interesting post Theresa! I’m horrible at English – I blame it all on my seventh grade English teacher who made learning verbs and predicates and all that mumbo jumbo as dry as dust. =) And I am trying to learn now! But I’m still too chicken to try to answer why it would be stepping instead of stepped…lol…..hopefully someone else will pop up with that one!
carrie
Very interesting post. Verb tenses are tricky little devils that cause me a lot of grief. You’ve given me a lot to think about. Using past perfect however, often sounds clunky to me. I’d try reworking/rewording to avoid that altogether.
Other than using “stepping and “steps” so close together, I’m stumped on the reworked example with regards to tense and the order of action/reaction.
However, I prefer that you place the cause of the event–the main catalyst of this paragraph (the entrance of the two men)–on its own or in an independent clause like in the original example. When it’s one of several phrases in a single sentence, it loses its importance as does putting it into a dependent clause.
Her dark gaze darted from guest to guest as she searched for an appropriate distraction. Two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions entered the ballroom and her focus skidded to a halt. A wintry blast of irritation swept through her, locking her muscles in place.
Thanks for a great discussion!
I like Laurie’s fix of separating the phrases. Not only does that un-bury the action of the men entering the room, but it fixes the present participle phrase (I’m going to abbreviate this to PPP so I don’t have to write it all out again).
Theresa, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think in your example, the entire “searching” clause should be simultaneous to her gaze darting (as PPPs should always be simultaneous). However, the “until” phrase makes everything after that point not simultaneous (i.e. her gaze is no longer darting) so it shouldn’t be in the present participle phrase. Yes, no, maybe so?
Jami G.
Hi Theresa,
Thanks for sharing this example. My CPs will confirm that verb tenses are one of my weaknesses. Although I think I’ve improved over the last two years, I still have work to do.
I was listening to an audio book on my way to work today. This paragraph caught my attention.
Her father had died of lung cancer when Lorna was a child. Her mother passed away a year ago.
Both are in the past, but only one is written in past perfect. Right?
This stuff makes my head spin.
Thanks, Tracey
Hi, Theresa. Excellent post. I have to admit, after reading Bickham’s Scene and Structure, I became a nut about action and reaction. Kelsey and Tracey can attest!
I agree with Laurie. I might even end the sentence at ballroom. For some reason (to me) it gives it more power. It forces me to stop and think about who these men are.
Two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions entered the ballroom.
I agree, Adrienne! I thought about it after I posted and decided it should probably stand on its own.
Or if you wanted to emphasize the woman’s reaction to the men, if that’s the focus of the paragraph, maybe change it this way:
Her dark gaze darted from guest to guest as she searched for an appropriate distraction. When two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions entered the ballroom, her focus skidded to a halt. A wintry blast of irritation swept through her, locking her muscles in place.
It needs a little more at the end to help the cadence/flow of that sentence otherwise it sounds too similar to the next to last one. Ugh, choices, choices. I’ll be curious to hear Theresa’s thoughts.
I’m so awesome. I just realized this post went live yesterday. Somehow I’m counting Fridays in a whole new way.
Tracey, it’s acceptable to use past perfect once to “shift” a paragraph into a different time zone, and then use simple past after that shift. Then, when you go back to the story’s present moment, you need some kind of transition or adverb to shift the time again. That might be what happened with your example sentences about the mother and father’s deaths.
Nobody’s picking up on the problem with that reorganized paragraph. Maybe we’ll blog that next month. heheheheheheheh
Hi Theresa,
Is the problem that Lord Beaufort has gone from stepping to standing without stopping? Because of the present/past tense conflict, it appears he has been transported–spacially and temporally–to the heroine’s left.
Theresa,
You can’t wait until next month for the reveal–that would be so wrong !
I agree with Jessica and the magical transportation theory. Also, though I fully admit to being a grammar dummy, the entire sentence here doesn’t make sense.
“Lord Beaufort stood on her left, with his ready smile, bore the swarthy, rugged complexion of a Welshman, and in stark contrast, his dark-haired companion wore his brooding English refinement like a shiny badge of honor.”
“Stood”, I think should be standing, or eliminated. Read it without “with his ready smile”.
That’s my guess!
Theresa, Thanks for the informative post. It challenges me to suggest the action/reaction still seems flipped–until her focus skidded to a halt on two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions stepping inside the ballroom.
Should the rewrite go something like this??–Her dark gaze darted from guest to guest, searching for an appropriate distraction, until two devastatingly handsome men of Viking proportions stepped inside the ballroom. Her focus skidded to a halt. Her steps slowed and a wintry blast of irritation swept through her, locking her muscles in place
Thanks for the exercise,
Sandy Crowley
Constructing the paragraph the new way adds a participial phrase.