Going back over my notes from around five years ago, I was surprised to see that the story I referred to in my last post was written in the present tense. In those early days, I thought it worked quite well, but then I recalled what happened as I neared the end of my first novel, The Sister. I came to the conclusion, after one hundred and fifty thousand words, that the story would be better told in past tense. So I changed it. Half way through the change I began to think it was better as it was and should have left it alone. I had a back up copy, of course, but in the end I persevered. I rewrote scenes I probably wouldn't have touched if I'd let the book be. I now believe the time taken carrying out the revisions, resulted in a stronger storyline and therefore a better book.