Grammar contractions — he had/he'd

H7TM4N

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I was writing just now, when I became suddenly aware that I rarely ever contract "he had" and "they had" into "he'd" and "they'd"in my writing. Scarier was the realization that I'm not even sure if I should.
Forgive me if it seems obvious; English isn't my native language. When is it best to contract these? Only when they're being spoken by characters? Only if they're used as auxiliary verbs? And more generally, how about other possible contractions? (My work in progress is a third person past fantasy novel)

Thanks in advance for any help!
 

Ari Meermans

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Grammatically speaking there's no reason to avoid using contractions except (possibly) in your most formal writing. (Contractions have a long history in the language going all the way back to Beowulf. just sayin') You can think of the use of contractions in your creative writing as another tool for subtly establishing closeness with your reader. So it's really a matter of formality vs. informality in the tone of your work.


ETA: We do use contractions in speaking so, yes, it's entirely appropriate to use them in dialogue.
 
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ChaseJxyz

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Generally, third-person narrators have a more "formal" voice than those of the characters, so there probably wouldn't be using he'd/they'd, but thing's like can't or won't wouldn't look odd or weird at all. In only the most formal of situations would you probably never use contractions. Sorting out the voice/tone for the narrator is something that a beta reader could help with.
 

Woollybear

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Also, it needs to be clear from context if he'd/she'd/they'd/etc is contracting pronoun-had or pronoun-would. Also, rhythm.

She would have gone to the store can be She'd have gone to the store or She would've gone to the store or even She'd've gone to the store.

He had not done something could be written He'd not done something or He hadn't done something. (But not He'dn't done something.)

Clarity and rhythm and voice. That's what you keep in mind.
 

Jason

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I'd personally shy away from "She'd've" though....while double contractions may be grammatically acceptable because they occur in speech, I'd feel really odd writing that in a work to be published outside of dialog.

May be a good roundtable discussion because it doesn't look like there's anything too authoritative on it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/comments/l4ahm/are_double_contractions_grammatically_correct/
https://thegrammarexchange.infopop.cc/topic/are-double-contractions-gramatically-legal
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_double_contractions
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/50/can-a-word-be-contracted-twice-e-g-ivent

Would any of these sources be considered "legit"?

I tried doing a search against the OED online and got zero results:

Code:
she'd've site:https://www.oed.com

Your search did not match any documents.

which means OED doesn't have an entry for it
 

H7TM4N

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Thanks for the feedback everyone. I wonder if the formality of the narration (and thereby use of contractions) might be different with different POV characters? Trying to have as much of the narration seem like characters thought anyway. But perhaps consistency is more important.
 
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ChaseJxyz

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Thanks for the feedback everyone. I wonder if the formality of the narration (and thereby use of contractions) might be different with different POV characters? Trying to have as much of the narration seem like characters thought anyway. But perhaps consistency is more important.

Yeah, if you have different POV characters, you can do that. The "narrator" isn't really unbiased, since it's in the one character's head and you're getting their thoughts and feelings, which affects the narration. Normally I wouldn't have a 3rd person narrator be something like "And then, like, it f***ing exploded" since that's really informal and it's kind of weird to drop an F bomb in something that's supposed to be "formal." I do have one POV character who has a mouth on her, so there are times when the narrator would use the F word, but sparingly and when it has the biggest impact.

You also have to think about word flow, too. You can write "He could not believe that it was not butter," or "He can't believe it's not butter." Do you want the reader to slow down and read every word? Or does the pace need to be quick, like in an action scene? What "feels" better?