Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

PRESENT TENSE REFERENCES TO PAST TIME

360

The present simple for dramatic effect 

360a

For stylistic reasons, the present simple is often used for true and fictional past

events in narratives to create a sense of immediacy, and to suggest that past events

are unfolding at the moment of speaking or writing. 

Story-tellers frequently shift from one tense to another. This use of the present

tense is often called the historic present:

[a woman is telling a story about a laser light show she went to in a theatre]

A: In the beginning there was darkness, and we hear this scraping sound, and

you 

see this little coloured pattern, the coloured pattern gets bigger and

bigger and bigger.

B: What was this projected by? A movie projector or a video?

[from the novel ‘Twenty Years a Growing’, by Maurice O’Sullivan]

I 

felt a prod in my shoulder. ‘The bus is coming,’ said George. She comes across

with a loud grating noise. The crowd 

moves towards her, myself and my

companion among them. She 

moves away rapidly.