I am writing a short horror story for an assignment in my English class. In the beginning of my story the narrator is being attacked and blacks out. She has a flashback of her entire life when she blacks out and then at the end of the story she wakes back up and finishes the opening scene. I don't know what tense to use for the story. Right now I have it split up where the first and last part are in present and the flashback is in past, but a classmate told me I had to pick one tense. Please help.

Question

anonymous · Answer

You can use two different tenses.  Just not in the same paragraph.  A flashback being in the past tense is fine.