Grammar Essentials: The Complete Guide

🔹 Tenses & Verb Forms: Mastering Time in Writing

Verbs control the timeline of your writing. Tenses show when something happened: past, present, or future. But it’s not just about matching the timeline—it’s about choosing the right tone and clarity.

Subtopic: Past Perfect vs. Simple Past

Simple Past: “She went to the market.”
Past Perfect: “She had gone before I arrived.”
Use past perfect to show what happened first in the past. It’s especially important in narratives to avoid confusion when describing sequences.

Subtopic: Progressive Forms for Action in Motion

The progressive form (-ing verbs) shows action in progress.
– Present progressive: “I am writing.”
– Past progressive: “I was writing when you called.”
It adds life and movement to your storytelling or descriptive writing.