Communicating timing—has it ended?

Now take a look at this next snippet. What does the verb group tell us about the action taking place?

The streets were drowning in harsh yellow light.

The event feels drawn out. When did the streets stop drowning in light? We don't know. Maybe they still are. The action is ongoing (or continuous)—there's no explicit beginning or end.

What about this next snippet?

He had made the land of Tarn a giant prison.

The River and the Book(2015)

This one is different. The action is done. Completed. The land of Tarn is now a giant prison.

Words like 'were' and 'had' are tense helpers that can communicate whether or not an action has been finished.

What's the difference in timing between these two statements?

He made dolls.
He had made dolls.

It's pretty subtle!

Let's try changing just the simple tense from past to present in both lines, and see what they say.

He makes dolls.
He has made dolls.

What if we change the simple tense to future?

He will make dolls.
He will have made dolls.

When we use had/has/have to show completed action, we're emphasising the end of the action—the moment where it goes from "not done" to "done"—whether or not that final moment has already happened in the past or will happen in the future.'

Let's tie this to narrative writing!

In narrative writing, we often use simple past tense (with no tense helpers) and completed action to help establish a sort of timeline for the characters: Julia came, then she saw, and finally she conquered.

Since most narratives are written completely in the past tense, the simple past makes it seem like the action is happening to the characters as we read.

That then means that using completion in the past tense tells the reader the action happened further back in time relative to the characters in the story: Julia came, then she saw, and finally she conquered—just as she had promised her father when she was a litle girl.

We could go on about all the different combinations of past/present/future and continuous/completed, but there's already some good resources out there (like this one), and the focus of this lesson is recognising and using tense helpers in verb groups, rather than knowing all the ins and outs of tense.

So here are some more examples that use tense helpers. Are these actions completed or continuous?

I know she's crying.

That Eye, the Sky(1986)

Notice how we highlighted 's, since it's short for is, which in this instance is the tense helper.

Dr. Lucafont had removed Uncle Monty's body.

The Reptile Room(1999)

I had been sitting in the boat all day.

The River and the Book(2015)

That last snippet uses both tense helpers in order to show that an ongoing event has an end.

Write a sentence using a tense helper ('is', 'was', 'are', etc. for ongoing action, or 'has', 'had', 'have', etc. for completed action).

Verb groups

Communicating timing—has it ended?