Question General English Grammar Question

I've been translating awhile now and a grammar question still plagues my mind.
The novel I am doing jumps between narrator and first person view.
So, I used to do it in present tense except when recounting history, and now I'm currently trying to switch it all to past tense.
However, there are some places that feel weird to me no matter how I look at it so I would like double confirmations.

For example:
The medal hanging on the wall served as the evidence of my past glory. Carved on the medal were the words...
I can't help but find it weird. I mean, even though it had happened in the past and a fictional world, the medal and ribbon should still serve as the evidence of his past glory. Some more, the words carved on the medal should be eternal, since it is a fact.
So, should such factual statements be in past tense or present tense?

Also, what about like one-person monologue? Like when a person is talking to himself, should it be past or present? It feels weird for a person's monologue to be in past tense to me.

I've been googling for awhile now but can't really find answers that are specific to grammar in novels. The answer I've got for general writing is that they should be present, but some of the grammar experts around me recommended me to use past tense for the sake of continuity. I'm sort of half-convinced for both stand so I'm here to ask more about it

 

I had a somewhat similar probably, so what I did was just italicize personal thoughts and add "he/she/(whoever) thought"

 

Well for me at least, when I write novel I always use past, only use present when it is an unchangeable fact, maybe, I'm just an amateur

 

Yeah like that ^^

 

I dunno but I know english not only past and present tense
on general
~past
~present
~future
and there still more branch like
past present
simple present
past perfect
ect
I hate learn english grammar

 

I can see that from your comment

 

A lot of the strangeness can be fixed by changing 'the' to 'a' or even changing the sentence structure itself so long as the general meaning gets through.

 

added I not using english on my work so I throw away most knowledge about it~

 

It really depends. English is a very subjective language so it depends upon what you're saying and why. But essentially any third person omniscient narration should use the past tense. First person narration or third person limited, or the bizarre second person narration are different

 

For my case he thinks too much to add a 'he thought' though

So would you all use past tense or present for these cases? Is there a rule to it or it is up to personal preference?

 

Ask the readers when you're unsure, some reader's English may be better to reference with. Sometimes it's just personal preference. I don't understand how your grammar isn't good...

 

A thought is much more difficult to definitively mark without addressing the context. Say for example, a car drives past a man quickly and he only notices it for a brief second. If he is thinking while the car is still in his line of sight and the action is ongoing he would think "'Is that a Ferrari?' he thought." if the car has completely past him and the action is complete, it would be ""Was that a Ferrari?' he thought."

 

It's difficult to explain while I'm on a mobile device, but I can send an example of what I do later.

 

I am a reader and reading the example I didn't feel it was weird or strange. I felt the 'were' was rightly used.

 

What if in the story, the incident was happening now.
However, since it's a novel, you would use past tense.
So using your example, a car passed by and the MC could be thinking 'I want to know whether that's a ferrari or not'. However, if you standardize it along with the rest of the text to past tense, it becomes 'I wanted to know whether that's a ferrari or not', which sounds a little queer to me, given how in that very instant, he wants to know whether it is a ferrari or not.

 

Well you have to look at the time reference. The action is ongoing in his mind. He at the is moment wants to know. Thus it has to be present tense.

In my example the verb is was used to describe location. It is there in one scenario. It was there in the second. The time reference is the key

 

I get it now, thanks

 

Time is such an annoyingly difficult thing in languages that is very non-obvious when only using one's first language since its obvious. English is my first language, but I have a very good grasp of it as a whole, so I can recognize why things are so more than the average english speaker.

 

This forum is titled general english grammer question, but thats exactly the problem with english. Thwre isn't one grammer rule in english that doesn't have an exception.

 

The medal hanging on the wall served as the evidence of my past glory. Carved on the medal are the words...

Things such as spoken sentences or present thoughts are in present tense.