Write Aligned

This is a chart I created to explain the various tenses, aspects and moods in English. I have seen a large number of these around, but all of them were only subsets of this chart. This one seeks to combine as many as practical. I hope you find it useful. :) (Note - some avid redditors have pointed out a couple of errors related to the subjunctive tense. I will be fixing these shortly). For the PDF, click here .

As someone who loves board games, I don't know why this hasn't occurred to me earlier. But if you're struggling to pull a plot together, it might be helpful to think of your story as a board game. Sure, it might be an unusual board game. The players might start and finish at different times and have wildly different moves, resources, motivations and goals. But as long as those goals are in conflict (which is essential to a story) then your characters are basically all playing a game. Start with Turn 1, Player 1. Become that player. What do you want? What moves are you going to make towards that? Then, become Player 2. What moves will they make? Are they aware of the other players yet? Repeat this for all players. Then move on to Turn 2. Which players are now aware of other players? Which players will have to adapt their moves based on what the other players have done? Which players are working together or against each other? Are any new players joining the game, or ha

How nice would it be if we could somehow transfer the story directly from our heads into a computer file? Maybe one day the technology will get there. Who knows...

In quantum physics (i.e. down on the level of electronics and sub-atomic particles), most things are described as “probability wave functions” rather than discrete blobs of matter. An electron isn’t just “there” at point X, it exists as a cloud of probabilities centred on point X. And that’s not just because we can’t tell accurately enough where it is, it’s actually smeared out in space like a wave, and has a chance of being anywhere within that cloud. This is how one electron can somehow go through two slits in a piece of metal simultaneously and interfere with itself like ocean waves. However, when you set up a detector to measure which slot the electron is going through, the wave-function collapses and the electron is observed going through only one slit, with no interference pattern. (For more information, see Young’s Double-Slit Experiment ). “What on earth does this have to do with writing a novel?” I can hear you crying. But I promise that we will get there. I once remarke