How to tell a story in English: the past tenses working together
Storytelling is where conversation comes alive — a weekend, a trip, something that went wrong. The trick is knowing which tense does which job.
Three tools, three jobs
- Past simple — the main events, in order.
- Past continuous — the background scene already in progress.
- Past perfect — something that happened before the story's moment.
Set the scene, then bring the event
The background is continuous; the thing that interrupts is simple.
Background action = continuous; the interrupting event = simple.
The sun was shining and the birds were singing. scene / background
Suddenly, a car stopped. main event
Step back to earlier information
When you mention something that happened before the main past moment, use the past perfect.
The earlier of two past events takes the past perfect.
Put it together
"It was raining and I was waiting for the bus. I had forgotten my umbrella, so by the time it came I was soaked." Three tenses, one smooth story: the scene, the earlier cause, the result.
Try it: tell a two-minute story about something that went wrong, and consciously use all three.
Practice this out loud. Speakwell gives you story prompts and the space to actually tell them — join the waitlist.