Past perfect

You answered the last question for yourself in the first example. As for it being necessary, it depends on the context, the relationship in time between actions.

"Before Jackie got home, it rained" is a simple statement. It makes equal sense reworded as "It rained before Jackie got home".

"Before Jackie got home, it had rained, and the newspaper lay in a puddle in front of the door" is another kettle of fish. The rain is now definitely occurring before some other event or specific time.

Here's a helpful page

My question is how do those fraggin font-tag messes get into some peep's posts....

TNWriter said:

How do you know when to use past perfect?
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They usually show up in memories of past events.

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And/or discovery of something that has already happened which the POV character wasn't aware of -- quickie fun example:

Jackie fell asleep on the way home and only woke up when the SUV pulled into the driveway. It had rained while she slept.

<looks at what Matera wrote> Possibly I just said the same thing.

-Derek

Past perfect has two major functions:

1. It's the past version of "present perfect". For example: "I've never eaten locusts before." --> "I'd never eaten locusts before." // "I've shot myself in the foot. It's so embarrassing." --> "I'd shot myself in the foot. It was so embarrassing."

2. It's used as past-in-the-past. "He did that the day before." --> "He had done that the day before."

You cannot avoid the past perfect for (1) without mutilating grammar. It's necessary. But (2) is often avoidable:

When you express past-in-past with other means. Your Jackie/rain examples are both correct and mean the same thing, for example, because "before" already implies the sequence. The main difference is in the speakers attitude:

Before Jackie got home, it had rained.


[Moment of speaking]--->[Moment of getting home]
........................[Moment of getting home]--->[Moment of Rain]

Before Jackie got home, it rained.


[Moment of speaking]--->[Moment of getting home]
[Moment of speaking]------------------------------->[Moment of Rain]

A flashback, for example, is often introduced by a past-perfect sentence that sets the time frame, and then is related in simple past, because that second interpetation is possible: both time-levels are past from the point of view of the narrative time - it is not necessary to keep both time levels constantly in mind.

Hope this helps a bit.

What Dawnstorm said.

"I had just eaten dinner when the phone rang."

"Before she got home, it rained" -- it means it's raining before, during and after she got home.

"Before she got home, it had rained." -- it means it stopped raining when she got home.

When you write in past tense, be sparse with the past perfect, especially in flashback. Many writers (me included) could overuse the tense just to make sure the chronological order is clear, but most likely it's unnecessary. Once you've established the time line ("it's a flashback, something that happened before the current time") you can ease back into simple past:


I flipped through the album and thought about that day in November. Janet had called me and asked me to meet her at the cafe. When I got there, she handed me the album. I didn't get her anything and had not even thought about it. She felt sad, and I felt awful.


Note there are two past perfects... the first one is used to establish the "previous" time line, where the narrator and Janet met at the cafe. Then everything is told again in simple past until the narrator needed to make sure something also happened even BEFORE that time line: BEFORE he went to the cafe that day, he HAD not thought about getting Janet something.

This is something I struggle with as well; figuring out how much past-perfect to use in a given instance. I prefer not to be confusing, if I can help it

This is one of those things that if I try to think it through I'm just going to tie myself in a hopeless knot.

2Wheels said:

This is one of those things that if I try to think it through I'm just going to tie myself in a hopeless knot.

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Just write. It can all be straightened out during edit/rewrite.

maestrowork said:

Just write. It can all be straightened out during edit/rewrite.

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That's the problem. "Just writing" I won't think about it, and it will probably be correct. It's during editing when I do a close inspection that I'd get into trouble!

2Wheels said:

That's the problem. "Just writing" I won't think about it, and it will probably be correct. It's during editing when I do a close inspection that I'd get into trouble!

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Just remember the basic rules (as outlined here) during edit, and you should be fine. Try not to overwork it.

The man had threatened his family and then reached inside his jacket.

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This one doesn't need a 'had'. He did one action and then did another, but I don't see anything that speaks to unusualness in time - just 1, then 2.

The 'had' is to tell a bit more about the relationship to time than just which happened first* [the above answers are great].

The man had threatened his family and then reached inside his jacket.

The man had threatened his family terribly before the police arrived.

That should imply that he had stopped by the time they got there.


* the past tense of past tense might just be telling which happened first, but I think of that as a whole tense.