Here’s our next look at tenses. If you missed last week’s post, review this first so you can understand what it means to be perfect 🙂
It’s important for fiction writers to understand what progressive tense is. Why? Because it’s used too often and can weaken your writing. So if you know what it is, you can look out for it (kind of like digging out the bits of onion in your salad that you don’t like). We tend to use this tense casually in speech and writing, and it certainly has its place. But if it’s not needed or just the right tense required for what you mean to say, then replace it with a better tense.
As my 9th-grade English teacher used to say: “Say what you mean. Don’t say what you don’t mean.” I live by that motto! Continue Reading…
