POINT OF VIEW AND TENSE

Dagnabbit! I forgot to mention that you'll need to figure out which narrative mode you're telling this story from. You may already know these well, but just in case we have any beginners or confusion, here are the different narrative modes:

-First-Person:
I went to the story and bought myself a plum.

-Second-Person:
You went to the story and bought yourself a plum.

-Third-Person:
She went to the story and bought herself a plum.

Choose a narrative mode for your story.

If you want a full explanation of narrative modes (and tons of reading), check out Wikipedia's article. If you just want a quick explanation, see below.

First-Person:
Consider that first-person allows puts you in a more intimate position with the character. It also allows you to hide stuff from your reader, like your character's name, appearance, gender, etc. Some stories, like The Finest Casket cannot be told from any other narrative mode without losing part of the fun.

Second-Person:
("You" as the Reader)
This is the choice for X Reader stories and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories. Rarely used in professional novels, but common enough on Deviant Art, if that's what you're into writing. One difficulty of this is that you can never name your character, because the character/person isn't really yours at all, and you have to keep the main character's actions reasonably average and predictable or risk losing the connection of the reader to the character version of themselves.

("You" as some other character)
The second-person "you" can also refer to a character other than the reader. For example, you might present your story as a series of letters written from one character to another, and the reader "just happened" to find those letters and read them.

Third-Person:
This is the most common narrative mode. It's pretty flexible. It allows you to switch points of view easily, if you need to. It also allows you to take a more omnipresent view, if you will, stepping into the thoughts of more than one character. Wikipedia calls these "voices".

Consider this scene in the "Subjective Voice":

Angela looked around the restaurant, puzzled. What was so urgent as to cause John to call for back up? She saw John in a corner booth. "Hey. What's up?"

He waved her over briskly, as if displeased. He nodded to a man across the room. "Terrence is not performing well."

Terrence was chattering with a waitress, and then he saw Angela and John staring. He waved and winked at Angela.

Angela felt herself blush, remembering how Terrence had stolen a kiss from her on their last mission together. "He looks like he's doing fine to me."

It isn't told by Angela (that would be first-person), but it is from her point of view. It locks the reader into her perceptions and thoughts.

Now consider this scene again in the "Omniscent Voice":

Angela looked around the restaurant, puzzled. She wondered what was so urgent as to cause John to call for back up. She saw John in a corner booth. "Hey. What's up?"

He waved her over briskly, displeased with her lateness. First Terrence and now Angela. Couldn't the agency send him any good agents for a change? He nodded to a man across the room. "Terrence is not performing well."

Terrence was chattering with a waitress, and then he saw Angela and John staring. He wasn't sure why she was there, but he wasn't going to complain. Not one to miss a chance to get Angela's attention, he waved and winked at her.

Angela's face turned red, as she remembered how Terrence had stolen a kiss from her on their last mission together. "He looks like he's doing fine to me."

In this approach, the reader is everywhere, seeing into everyone's thoughts. This can be a bit disorienting, and if you are trying to hide information from the reader, this may be a poor choice. It also makes it harder for the reader to bond with the main character . . . because there is none.

Consider this scene once more, in the "Objective Voice":

Angela looked around the restaurant, puzzled. She saw John in a corner booth. "Hey. What's up?"

He waved her over briskly, displeased. He nodded to a man across the room. "Terrence is not performing well."

Terrence was chattering with a waitress, and then he saw Angela and John staring. He waved and winked at Angela.

Angela's face turned red. "He looks like he's doing fine to me."

Now the reader can't see anyone's thoughts. They are purely a witness, like someone watching a movie. I'm not fond of this one. I haven't seen it used much, beyond scriptwriting.

I use a few criteria for deciding among narrative modes and voices:

-What information am I hiding from the reader?
-What information do I need the reader to know?
-Do I want the reader to bond with a particular character?
-Is it important/desirable for the reader to experience the inner thought and senses of a particular character?

So, back to the question at hand:

Choose a narrative mode for your story.

First-Person, because my protagonist is going through a lot of inner conflict and her perceptions (and the new ones she finds) are a large part of the story.

Alright. Now for tense.

Find a good grammar book or website (such as English Page) to explain the mechanics of verb tense if you do not feel comfortable with all the different tenses. I can't cover that here. However, I can help you choose.

There are about a million different verb tenses, each having to do with whether you are telling the story from the past or the future, or telling a future story from the past, or telling a future ongoing story from the past, or whatever. Yeah, yeah, I'm exaggerating. A little. That said, there are really only two you need to concern yourself with as far as storytelling modes go.

-Past tense
The miniature-giant space-hamster leaped off Minsc's shoulder and attacked the kobold's eyes!

-Present tense
The miniature-giant space-hamster leaps off Minsc's shoulder and attacks the kobold's eyes!

Neither is particularly more difficult than the other, but here are some things to consider:

-Past tense
If the story is told in the past tense, this can imply (if you choose) that the narrator or protagonist have already experienced the future. This allows you to make such statements as:

"If I'd known what I was getting myself into, I never would have answered the door that summer morning. Having no such ability to see the future, I threw open the door with a grin to welcome what I thought would be my neighbor, Zack.

I don't know who was more surprised—me in my bath robe, or the green man in the tuxedo."

See how the character is visibly looking back, telling the story with a knowledge of what happened next?

-Present tense
Present tense makes the action more immediate, and neither protagonist nor reader know what will happen next. Consider how the above scene would go in this tense.

"The doorbell rings, and I know it must be Zack. There's no time to change out of my bath robe, so I drop the newspaper on the coffee table and run to get the door. I throw it open with a grin.

But standing there is not my cute, brown-haired neighbor. No, standing there, staring at my disheveled appearance, is a green man in an immaculate tuxedo."

Other things to consider: Past tense allows more telling, whereas present tense demands more showing. Past tense allows foreshadowing, but present tense can create more unexpected surprises.

On more thing—you could theoretically tell your story in any of the numerous tenses, if you wanted to be creative. Just be warned, it could get awkward, or even ridiculous.

"I will have been reading the newspaper when the doorbell rings, and I will have rushed to throw open the door. I will have been expecting to greet my neighbor Zack, but instead I will have found my welcoming grin landed upon a green man in a suit."

Yeah . . . unless your narrator is a prophet, I'd probably avoid that one.

Tip: When in doubt on which narrative mode and tense to use, just pick one and try using it for the first few paragraphs, and if it doesn't feel right, pick another.

Which tense will best serve your story?

Past tense. I'm more familiar with it and how to best utilize it.

Purpose of this section: Before you can start writing, you have to decide how you are going to tell the story in terms of narrative mode and verb tense.