Flitting between the past and present tense when writing?

The gravel crunches and spatters beneath the wheels of the bus as it swings into the station. Outside the winder shadowy figures peer at the bus through the darkness, Somewhere in the crowd, two, maybe three people are waiting for me:a woman, her son, and possibly her husband. I could not prevent my imagination from churning a picture of them, the town, and the place I would soon call home.

Hesitating a moment, I rose from my seat, these images flashing through my mind.

The gravel crunches and splatters underneath the wheels of the bus as it swings into the station. Outside of the window shadowy figures peer at the bus through the darkness. Somewhere in the crowd two or maybe even three people wait for me.

They are, a woman, her son, and someone who is possibly her husband. I can not prevent my imagination from churning out a picture of them, this place, and my new home. I hesitate only a moment before I rise up from my seat and these images do not cease to flash through my mind.

You change the verbs and some of the prepositional phrases. You had one sentence with two dependent clauses, but no independent clause(s) so I changed it to be more like proper grammar. Hope you don't mind :D Good luck with this.

Very foreboding (not that you asked my opinion).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.