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Old 05-09-2008, 10:48 AM   #1
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Tense of this paragraph?

Original
I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. I'd had to turn both those twelve-gauge shells from brass stock, on the lathe, and then load then myself; I'd had to dig up an old microfiche with instructions for hand- loading cartidges; I'd had to build a lever-action press to seat the primers -all very tricky. But I knew they'd work.

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3rd person
He put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not his style at all, but that was what he was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. He was a very technical boy. So he decided to get as crude as possible. Those days, though, you had to be pretty technical before you could even aspire to crudeness. He'd had to turn both those twelve-guage shells from brass stock, on the lathe, and then load them himself; he'd had to dig up an old microfiche with instructions for hand-loading cartridges; he'd had to build a lever-action press to seat the primers - all very tricky. But he knew they'd work.

Could the "he was" part also be "he's" or is that present tense?

Could the other bold bit in the 2nd paragraph be the same as the line in the first paragraph and still work, or is that also present tense?
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Old 05-09-2008, 06:27 PM   #2
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"He's" means "he is," which is present tense.

In the third-person perspective you're using past tense. By chaning to "these days" you are also changing tenses. You should try to stick with one, so I'd leave that as "Those days".

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