Past Perfect Question

Maze Runner · Jul 6, 2015

Hi all, hope someone can help clear something up for me. When you're writing in past tense and you bring up an event that happened before, you use past perfect tense, right? But, must all verbs in that sentence or section be in past perfect tense?

For example: John knew he looked familiar, but couldn't place him. Then he remembered that he'd met him at the same function years ago, when he was waiting for his turn at the podium. (Or should it be? Then he remembered that he'd met him at the same function years ago, when he'd been waiting for his turn at the podium.)

To continue: They'd talked of many things that night, of how they got (they'd gotten) into the business, where they earned (they'd earned) their degrees, where and how they met (they'd met) their wives...

I guess all I'm asking is, when in past tense, must every verb that describes an event or a condition prior to real time be in past perfect tense?

Thanks very much. I've never been clear on this.

King Neptune · Jul 7, 2015

Maze Runner said:
Hi all, hope someone can help clear something up for me. When you're writing in past tense and you bring up an event that happened before, you use past perfect tense, right? But, must all verbs in that sentence or section be in past perfect tense?

For example: John knew he looked familiar, but couldn't place him. Then he remembered that he'd met him at the same function years ago, when he was waiting for his turn at the podium. (Or should it be? Then he remembered that he'd met him at the same function years ago, when he'd been waiting for his turn at the podium.)

Either is correct, because it is continuing action in the past, and it is a past perfect action.

To continue: They'd talked of many things that night, of how they got (they'd gotten) into the business, where they earned (they'd earned) their degrees, where and how they met (they'd met) their wives...

I guess all I'm asking is, when in past tense, must every verb that describes an event or a condition prior to real time be in past perfect tense?

Thanks very much. I've never been clear on this.

How you handle each clause depends on what you want the reader to take from it. Technically, any example of past perfect action demands use of the past perfect tense, but a long discussion that is past perfect would usually be written in the perfect tense, but that's also a matter of voice.

Maryn · Jul 7, 2015

If you check out the genre fiction on your shelves, you'll see it's pretty widely accepted that you use a past perfect verb to lead the reader into the event that occurred before the book's action is happening (told in past tense), continue the detail in past tense, then end it with another past perfect and a word to cue the reader we're back in the present.

So you'll often see something along the lines of: John knew he looked familiar, but couldn't place him. Then he remembered that he'd met him at the same function years ago, when he was waiting for his turn at the podium. They talked of many things that night, of how they got into the business, where they earned their degrees, where and how they met their wives, and more. They had clicked on every level.

Now their wives were gone and they were strangers to one another...

Maryn, noting that full past perfect is also correct

Maze Runner · Jul 7, 2015

Thanks Maryn and King Neptune--I had a hunch that's what it was but wasn't sure.

Perrorist · Jul 11, 2015

Maryn is on the money.

Past Perfect Question

Maze Runner

King Neptune

Maryn

Baaa!

Maze Runner

Perrorist