If it is a personal story, a mix of past, present, and future tenses are used. Ex: My father died last Monday and his funeral is tomorrow. He was a wonderful man who we will miss. (note - whom we will miss is archaic and rarely used now) If it is a retelling of a joke, a fable, a book, or a movie, the simple present tense is normally used ("narrative present tense"). Ex: A man and a dog walk into a bar. The man orders a beer. Then, the dog orders a beer. Surprised, the bartender says to the man, "your dog talks!" The man says....

Depends on your story. If actions have happened "up to now" then present perfect. If they are totally in the past then past indefinite and past perfect.

This is a good summary: "The simple past has the advantage that it does not have any baggage or overhead to keep in mind when telling a story. It does not require saying when something happened. “It happened” does the trick. The other tenses, present perfect and past perfect, require keeping track of and indicating which event happened before, during, or after another. " The above was an answer to a similar question to yours. Just for reference, the answer is from a technical editor and writer for Kodak at one time (Frank Dauenhauer).

Thank you for the info!

You can even tell stories very effectively in the present tense. More conventionally, a mix of tenses is used. This is worth a look I think .. https://christinarebuffet.com/blog/past-tenses-in-english/ https://www.english-at-home.com/speaking/telling-a-story/ https://theeditorsblog.net/2012/01/31/narrative-tense-right-now-or-way-back-then/ http://englishtenses.eu/narrating-tenses/