The Turkish -dı and -mış distinction, and the same scene written in three forms

Why is narrative tense a choice?

Most novels are told in the past tense. But novels told in the present tense are far from rare, and which to choose is one of the questions most often asked in writing workshops. The question is not only about grammar: tense also decides where in time the narrator looks at events from.

We discussed how closely the narrator looks at events in the Narrative Distance article. This article continues that discussion: tense choice is one of the grammatical tools for adjusting distance.

Genette: the time of narrating

The French narratologist Gérard Genette divides the position in time of the narrator's act of narrating, relative to the events narrated, into four types: narrating after the events (subsequent narrating), narrating before the events (prior narrating), narrating at the same time as the events (simultaneous narrating) and a mix of these (interpolated narrating). The most common type is subsequent narrating.

There is an important distinction here: using the present tense does not mean that the narrating is simultaneous with the events. An event that happened in the past can also be told in the present tense; this is called the “historical present”, and it is often used in stories narrated after the fact to add immediacy. Conversely, the past tense can render events very close to a character's perception of the moment. The narratologist José Ángel García Landa cites John Updike's novel Rabbit, Run as an example of simultaneous narrating in this discussion. We discussed another way of following a character's mind in the moment in the Interior Monologue article.

Hamburger: does the past tense in fiction not show the past?

In her 1957 book Die Logik der Dichtung (in English The Logic of Literature, 1973), the German literary theorist Käte Hamburger argued the thesis of the “epic preterite”. For Hamburger, the past tense in fictional narrative loses its function of designating what is past: a reader of “The next day she set off” follows not a past but the fiction's own present.

The thesis has been much debated. A study by Katja Mellmann published in 2019 showed, in a cross-cultural sample made up mostly of oral folk narratives, that some cultures tell stories in the present tense or in forms marking remoteness. Mellmann suggests that the epic preterite marks not a tense but a change in modality, and that in some languages this function is served by grammatical forms that mark the source of information (evidentiality). This point is especially interesting for Turkish.

The third option in Turkish: “-dı” and “-mış”

In English there is basically one option for the past: “she walked”. Turkish has two past-tense suffixes, and the difference between them is not only about time. “-dı” (yürüdü, “walked”), called the “witnessed past” in school grammar, shows that the speaker witnessed the event or knows it for certain. “-mış” (yürümüş), called the “reported” or “learned past”, can show that the information is indirect, heard, noticed after the fact or inferred.

The linguists Ayhan Aksu-Koç and Dan Slobin examined the development and use of these evidential forms in Turkish in a 1986 study. That Turkish folk tales open with “Bir varmış, bir yokmuş” (“once there was, once there was not”) and continue with “-mış” is the most familiar example of this distinction: the teller of the tale says not that they witnessed the events but that they are passing them on.

So a writer working in Turkish has not two but at least three options: the present (“yürüyor”), the witnessed past (“yürüdü”) and the reported past (“yürümüş”).

At a glance: three forms, three positions

The table below is a comparison prepared for this article. The effects in the columns are a reading suggestion; they have not been tested with readers.

Example: the same scene, three forms

The scene below was written for this article and is given in three forms with the same details. Because English has no grammatical equivalent of “-mış”, the third version approximates it with a reporting word:

Witnessed past: The bus stopped in front of the stop. The door opened; no one got off. The driver looked at Hüsnü in the mirror. Hüsnü folded the ticket in his hand in two, put it in his pocket and did not get on. The door closed.

Present tense: The bus stops in front of the stop. The door opens; no one gets off. The driver looks at Hüsnü in the mirror. Hüsnü folds the ticket in his hand in two, puts it in his pocket and does not get on. The door closes.

Reported past (approximated): The bus, so it is told, stopped in front of the stop. The door opened; no one got off, they say. The driver looked at Hüsnü in the mirror. Hüsnü folded the ticket in his hand in two, put it in his pocket and did not get on. The door closed, it is said.

All three versions contain the same details: the bus stopping, the passenger who does not get off, the driver looking in the mirror, the folded ticket. What changes is only where in time the narrator looks at these details from:

• Witnessed past: the narrator saw what happened and knows the outcome. The reader may expect to learn later why Hüsnü did not get on.
• Present tense: the narrator stands at the same moment as Hüsnü. They seem not to know what will happen; the reader watches the door close together with Hüsnü.
• Reported past: the narrator heard the event from someone else or learned of it later. The scene becomes an account passed on; the reader may start asking where these details came from.

In none of the three versions is an emotion named. The Emotion Embargo, one of the two constitutional rules of Objective Projection, proposes that an emotion should not be stated by name but built from observable details. Tense choice neither violates nor satisfies this rule; while the details stay the same, it changes the distance from which the reader looks at them.

Tense and the temporal anchor

In a narrative written in the present tense, markers showing when the event takes place may become even more important, because the tense itself does not point to a “later”. Temporal Anchor, one of the four working rules of Objective Projection, proposes that a concrete time, duration or measurement be present in the scene. We discussed this rule through the way artificial intelligence handles narrative time in a separate Temporal Anchor article; that article's focus was artificial intelligence, this one's is grammar.

Changing tense is also a way of going back in time. In a story told in the present tense, switching to the past tense, or in a story told in the past, switching to the past perfect, gives the reader a flashback signal. We discussed the entry and exit of a flashback in the Flashback article.

Two tenses in the same novel

Some writers use both tenses in the same novel. Charles Dickens's Bleak House, published in 1852–53, moves between a third-person narrator speaking in the present tense and the chapters in which Esther Summerson tells her own story in the past tense. In such a structure, tense also shows the reader which narrator is speaking. We discussed narrator types in the Point of View article.

In screenwriting, the present tense is a convention: action lines describe what is seen on screen at that moment. We discussed how screenplay action lines are written in the Screenplay Action Lines article.

What the doctrine cannot say here

• It cannot say that one tense is more immersive than another. The three versions of the example scene were not compared with readers.
• It cannot say that the present tense makes the reader feel closer to events; the positions in the table are a reading suggestion.
• It cannot say that the Turkish “-mış” always produces a sense of distrust or distance in the reader. The meaning of this suffix depends on context, and it also has other functions such as surprise or realising something after the fact.
• It cannot resolve the debate between Hamburger's thesis and Mellmann's findings; this article only summarises both.
• It does not turn tense choice into a rule of Objective Projection; tense is a writing choice outside the rules.

Limitations

This article presents the views of Genette, Hamburger, Mellmann, and Aksu-Koç and Slobin through secondary sources and summaries; the works were not examined in detail. The Turkish tense terms are given with their common names in school grammar; linguistics also uses other terms. No passages were quoted from the novels. The English version of the reported-past scene is an approximation. The example scene was written for this article and has not been tested with readers. The concepts and sources of the doctrine are listed in Levent Bulut's knowledge graph, and the published works on the Levent Bulut corpus page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should a story be written in present or past tense?

There is no fixed rule. The past tense is the most common narrative tense; the present tense is also used in many novels. Tense decides where in time the narrator looks at events from, and so it can be thought of as a tool of narrative distance.

What is the historical present?

The historical present is the telling of an event that happened in the past in the present tense. It is used to add immediacy. Using the present tense does not mean that the narrating is simultaneous with the events.

What is the difference between -dı and -mış in Turkish storytelling?

The witnessed past (-dı) shows that the narrator witnessed the event or knows it for certain. The reported past (-mış) can show that the information is indirect, heard or learned later. That Turkish folk tales are told with “-mış” is a familiar example of this difference.

What are famous novels written in the present tense?

John Updike's Rabbit, Run is told in the present tense. In Charles Dickens's Bleak House, chapters by a narrator speaking in the present tense alternate with chapters in which Esther Summerson narrates in the past tense.

Can you switch tense within the same story?

Yes. A change of tense often signals a flashback, a change of narrator or a jump in time. What matters is that there is a marker by which the reader can notice the change.

References

• Aksu-Koç, A. A., & Slobin, D. I. (1986). A psychological account of the development and use of evidentials in Turkish. In W. Chafe & J. Nichols (Eds.), Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology (pp. 159–167). Ablex.
• Dickens, C. (1852–53). Bleak House. Bradbury & Evans.
• Genette, G. (1980). Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Trans. J. E. Lewin. Cornell University Press. (Original: Figures III, 1972.)
• Hamburger, K. (1957). Die Logik der Dichtung. (Eng. The Logic of Literature, 1973.)
• Mellmann, K. (2019). On the origin of the epic preterit. Journal of Literary Theory, 13(2), 206–226.
• Updike, J. (1960). Rabbit, Run. Alfred A. Knopf.
• García Landa, J. A. Structural Narratology: 4.8. Time of the narrating. personal.unizar.es (accessed 30 October 2026).

Citation

@misc{bulut2026narrativetenseen,
  author       = {Bulut, Levent},
  title        = {Present Tense vs Past Tense in Fiction: Choosing a Narrative Tense},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://leventbulut.com/present-tense-vs-past-tense-in-fiction/}},
  note         = {leventbulut.com}
}