Unlocking Success: The Surprising Secrets Behind Getting Chapter Two Perfectly Right
It sounds like Joe’s flashback in chapter two breaks that promise. And so does chapter three and most of chapter four.
But when you break a promise to the reader that early in the book, and for that long, you’re very likely to lose a lot of readers.
Present Tense and Past Tense
Let’s be clear that there’s no real problem with switching from present tense to past tense and back again. Many readers won’t even notice. Readers that notice won’t really care, as long as the story engages them.
The only problem is in making a radical change in the pace of the story so early in the book, before the reader has committed to the story. (Later in the book, if you want to briefly change the pace to give the reader a breather, you’re probably on safe ground.)
