Half present, half past sentence

CupofDice said:

I am writing in 3rd person limited, past tense. I got some crits that said I kept switching to present. I noticed in some of my sentences, they seem to be half past, half present.

"He looked away, hoping that would be enough to cut off the conversation."

"He looked away, and hoped that would be enough to cut off the conversation."

Which one is correct, or are they both okay?

Thanks for any help.

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Both are correct, although I would delete the comma in the second sentence (I don't like to separate the verbs in a compound predicate).

I agree, both are correct--sans comma in the second.

It sounds as if the people doing the crits are not as solid on writing mechanics as would be ideal. I think you should still thank them for their observations or 'corrections' on your writing mechanics, but it's not safe to assume they're correct.

Maryn, who knows good intentions when she sees them

CupofDice said:

I am writing in 3rd person limited, past tense. I got some crits that said I kept switching to present. I noticed that in some of my sentences, they seem to be half past, half present.

"He looked away, hoping that would be enough to cut off the conversation."

"He looked away, and hoped that would be enough to cut off the conversation."

Which one is correct, or are they both okay?

Thanks for any help.

Click to expand...

They're both fine, and the first one is NOT half past-half present. "I am hoping" is present; "I was hoping" is past. In other words, "hoping" all by itself has no inherent tense--it's whatever tense the rest of the sentence makes it, and your first sentence makes it past. In other words,
if, as in your sentence, the character's action is in the past ("looked away") and then you describe the character as "hoping," you're still in the past.

CupofDice said:

My fault. They weren't criticizing those 2 sentences (at least I don't think they were), but actual present tenses like 'He was running'.

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He was running is past tense, not present. See my previous post. The -ing form of a verb has no inherent tense; it is whatever tense the rest of the sentence makes it.

He is running: present continuous tense, also known as present progressive (as opposed to "he runs," which is the simple present).
He was running: past continuous tense, also known as past progressive (as opposed to "he ran," the simple past).

In other words, "he is running" is to "he was running" as "he runs" is to "he ran." In both examples the first form is present and the second is past.