tense in stories

[Anonymous]

Hi. I noticed that stories, novels, and report use past and present tense. Like for instance, the book "Harry Potter" tells the story in past tense. On the other hand, I read some stories in the "Chicken Soup series" which have both past and present stories.
The question is, when to choose past/present when making a story?

Thx in advance.

[Pete]

>Hi. I noticed that stories, novels, and report use past and present tense. Like for instance, the book "Harry Potter" tells the story in past tense. On the other hand, I read some stories in the "Chicken Soup series" which have both past and present stories.
>The question is, when to choose past/present when making a story?

-- Generally the "historic present" or "narrative present" seems to make a past action more vivid. Sometimes short stories maintain this tense for their length. It probably would not sound natural for a whole novel to do this.

-- Sometimes you see an author jump back and forth between past tense descriptions and this kind of present. When this is done, a shift in tense, either from past to present or from present to past makes puts special emphasis on that particular point in the story. The author might do this at a change in scene or when something unexpected happens.

(You can probably find more by searching for either of those terms on the Web.)