Verb Tense Consistency

Verb tense consistency refers to keeping the same tense throughout a clause. We don’t want to have one time period being described in two different tenses. If you have two or more time periods, start a new clause or a new sentence.

Mark finished his essay, tidies his room, and went out for supper.

Finished and went are in past tense, but tidies is in present tense. Logistically, this can’t happen. We could fix this in a couple of different ways:

Mark finished his essay, tidied his room, and went out for supper.

Mark finished his essay and went out for supper, and now he is tidying his room.

The winds along the coast blow the trees over when the weather got bad.

The winds along the coast blow the trees over when the weather gets bad.

The winds along the coast blew the trees over when the weather got bad.

I’m eating the cake which I made this morning.

The verb tense consistency in this sentence is logical, as the cake must be made before it can be eaten. Still, we use two clauses to show the different tenses.