Literary present tense
Characters in a novel live in the present time in the novel. To write about them, we use what is called
the literary present tense. Atticus is a great father to Scout and Jem. Oedipus plugs his ears with wax so
he won’t hear the Siren’s song. Be cautious when you weave in text citations that are primarily in the past
tense. You need to create sentences that are clear and correct. Mixing verb tenses can be very confusing.
If you must change the tense in a quoted passage, use [brackets] around the parts you change.