Narrative

Tenses
 What are narrative tenses?

Narrative tenses are verb tenses that are used to talk about the past. You can often find them in stories,
textbooks, spoken accounts and in descriptions of past events.
The following are examples of narrative tenses:
Past simple: 'We left for the airport on an exceptionally sunny day.'
Past continuous: 'The sun was shining and it was really hot by midday.'
Past perfect: 'It had been sunny on and off for the previous fortnight.'
Past perfect continuous: 'We had been waiting at the airport for what seemed like an eternity.'
 Narrative Tenses

+ - ?

I went to the shop last I didn’t go to the shop Did I go to the shop last
week and last week week?
then I had nap.

While I was walking to t Many of the drivers we I looked

he shop, there many ren’t looking where the into the cars. Were the
cars drove past me. y drivers looking at their
were going because th mobile phones?
ey were looking at their
mobile phones

1. Which tenses do we use to talk about events in sequence?

An ambulance had take Someone who had see Why had the car crash
2. Which tense do we use to talk about something that n the driver to hospital n the crash ed, I wondered?
because the mangled told me the driver hadn’
happened before an event in the past? wreck was empty t died.

3. Which tense do we use to talk about something that was

happening at the same time as another event?
 Bond opened the door very slowly, looked carefully around the room and walked in.
The window was open and the curtains were blowing in the wind. Clearly
someone had left in a hurry.
Past simple
opened, looked, walked, was
Past continuous
were blowing

What are Past perfect

had left

narrative The first three verbs - opened, looked and walked - are a sequence: they are
written in the order that the actions took place. We know this because they are in

tenses?
the past simple.
The past continuous verb, were blowing, shows an action in progress: the curtains
started blowing before he walked into the room and continued to blow while he was
there.
The last verb, had left, shows an action that happened before he walked in.
If we used the past simple for the last verb, the meaning would be different:
The window was open, the curtains were blowing. Someone left in a hurry.
This suggests that the person left after Bond walked in.
 We use the past simple to talk about past events in
chronological order; i.e. for the story’s main events.
When she opened the door, she pretended we
weren’t there and went to her room.
He called me and told me to go, but he wasn’t there
when I arrived.
Past simple
We also use the past simple to talk about past
habits or past states.
We often went to the bar for a drink before dinner.
He really liked sport and was very fit.
 We use the past continuous the set the scene in a story.
• Last night I was walking home and listening to my iPod
when …
• The sun was shining and lots of tourists were lying on
the beach. Suddenly …
Past
Continuous We use the past continuous for actions in progress in
the past or longer actions interrupted by shorter actions
in past simple.
• After dinner, I went into the living room and saw that
she was crying.
• When she opened the door, we were talking about her.
 We use the past perfect simple to talk about an
earlier past: events which happened before the
main event.
Earlier single events
We use the past perfect simple to talk about earlier
events and experiences, or single

Past Perfect actions completed earlier in the past.

• When she opened the door, he had already left.
• I realised that I had been there before.
• When I met her, I had never been in a serious
relationship.
• He noticed I had cleaned the car. It was smooth
and shiny.
Past Perfect
vs
Past Perfect
Continuous