Narrative tenses: Past Simple, Past Continuous, Present and Past Perfect (Continuous)

Introduction

There are several tenses that will help us tell a story. We need to integrate all of these structures because each one helps us express a different concept, and they will also help us give variety to our writing. This is specially important to keep our reader's attention. Let's analyze this in a practical example.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - By Oscar Wilde

Below you will find a summary of the begining of this interesting story. Can you identify the highlighted tenses? What concepts are they expressing? Try to asnwer these questions yourself before you go over the concepts below.

Dorian Gray met Basil Hallward and Lord Henry and entered London high society as a young and innocent man. While Basil was painting his portrait, Lord Henry was talking about beauty and pleasure which caught Dorian’s attention.

Dorian attended several sessions to have his portrait painted, and Lord Henry would often be there to tell him dangerous stories. By the time his portrait was finished, he had been influenced by Lord Henry, whose words started to change his soul. He then proceeds to make a dangerous wish...

After some time, Dorian met Sybil Vane. Sybil was a beautiful young artist who had been dreaming of a wonderful life beyond the theater since she was little. (Past perfect continuous – her dreaming had been in progress before this point of the story). He believes in love now, but he is confused because he doesn't know whether to follow his heart, or to let the words of Lord Henry change him and take over...

Everything is so complicated. However, from the very moment that he spoke to Lord Henry for the first time, Dorian has changed a lot as a person (Present perfect – change over time with present result). He isn't the same sweet young man he used to be, and he has been doing horrible things to satisfy his most terrible instincts, believing his looks will protect him (Present perfect continuous – this was repeated over a period of time leading up to the present). Only God knows what is in his heart now...

Simple past

We use the simple past to talk about the main events of our story. Think of it as the "linear" approach of telling a story:

1) I did this first...

2) then, I did that.

In this case Dorian met his friends, and entered London high society.

Past Continuous

We use the past continuous to talk about the background actions in our story. It can also be used to talk about simultaneous actions in the past.

What was happening around the main characters? What was the scene like?

The sun was shining and the birds were singing...

While you were buying clothes, I was speaking on the phone.

In our story, while Basil was painting his portrait, Lord Henry was talking about beauty and pleasure

Past Perfect

We use the past perfect to talk about actions that happened before other past actions in our story. This tense is sometimes known as "the past of the past" because what we express with the past perfect preceeds the other past action.

For example:

By the time his portrait was finished, he had been influenced by Lord Henry

Notice that this tense is many times used along with the past simple, or any other expression that will work as a point of reference in the past.