English Composition › Section P · Print or textual analysis › Topic P.3
Editing focus: the literary present tense
A story may be told in the past tense, and its author may have died a century ago, yet when you write about it, its characters act and its author speaks in the present. Knowing when that convention applies, and when it does not, keeps your analysis clear.
In this topic
- Texts live in the present
- The basic rule
- Earlier events within the story
- Outside the text: biography and history
- Quotations and the literary present
- Other texts and disciplines
- Worked example: editing a paragraph
- Worked example: a deliberate mix
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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