Use simple past tense when make a report about incident that happen in the past?

[Rosario]

Hello everybody,

Must we use simple past tense when make a report about incident that happen in the past time?

Thanks in advance.

[Alan]

Hi Rosario,

'A report about an incident that happened ..' In simple description/narrative describing events in the past, you would use the Past Simple/Past Perfect. But there is an example, which has been discussed on the forum, whereby you use the Present Simple if you want to make the description more dramatic. And this is called the historic present.

You will find this reference here:

Sentences which are written in the present simple tense but actually that...

Alan
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English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story Present Simple

[Rosario]

Thank you so much Alan.