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9.- NARRATIVE TENSES

When telling a story, we use different past tenses. These tenses are sometimes called “narrative tenses” (to “narrate something” means to “tell a story”). In the following anecdote, you can see examples of the four different past tenses that are commonly used for storytelling:

The other day, something awful happened to one of my colleagues at work. We had been advertising a special offer of a 50 per cent discount for new customers and had received hundreds of orders in just a few days. Six of us were working on processing them. The desks were already overflowing with paper when another five boxes, full of order forms, arrived. My colleague Bridget put them on the floor under her desk. The next morning, she discovered that the cleaners had thrown the boxes into the dustbin! They had assumed that anything that had been left on the floor was rubbish. Can you imagine how Bridget felt? Anyway, she and another colleague drove to the waste-disposal site as fast as they could. And, believe it or not: the order forms hadn’t been destroyed yet. With the help of some of the workers there, they managed to rescue about 90 per cent of them.

Amazing, isn’t it?

The past simple
The past simple usually describes the main events of a story. We use it to talk about single, consecutive or repeated activities and events in the past. These activities or events were completed at a particular time in the past. The time is often mentioned: “The other day, something awful happened...”; “The next morning, she discovered...”.

The past perfect
We use the past perfect to talk about a past event that happened before another past event: “She discovered that the cleaners had thrown...”. Background information for a past situation is also often given in the past perfect: “We had received hundreds of orders...”.

The past continuous
We use the past continuous to talk about activities that were in progress over a period of time: “Six of us were working...”.
We often use the past continuous in contrast with the past simple — one activity was in progress when something else happened: “The desks were already overflowing ... when another five boxes arrived.”

The past perfect continuous
We use the past perfect continuous to talk about activities that were in progress before the time of the main events in a story. Like the past perfect and the past continuous, the past perfect continuous is also used to narrate the background to a story: “We had been advertising...”.