The Narrative Past: Using Past Perfect

The past tense is the most common tense used in fiction narratives to reflect the narrative present:

She fought on dragonback.

Since the narrative present is written in the past tense, another tense is needed to show the narrative past. This is where the past perfect comes in.

The past perfect signals a completed past action. In fiction written in the past tense, it signals that an action took place before the narrative present.

Note: This is only the case for narratives written in the past tense. For narratives written in the present tense, the past tense is used to describe actions that happened before the narrative present.

Forming the Past Perfect

The past perfect is formed by adding had in front of the past participle, which is a fancy way of saying a past tense verb:

Past Perfect = had + past participle

The past perfect is a useful way to develop backstory and history, in addition to showing previous actions within a past tense narrative.

The downside of the past perfect is that it can be very clunky and repetitive, especially in long flashback or exposition sequences.

She had fought on dragonback in the last war and had barely escaped with her life after she had been badly burned by dragon fire. It had taken a long time to recover from her injuries. She had spent years in and out of healing centres and had taken countless potions and medicines.

The above feels like a slog to get through because of the repetition of had that is required to form the past perfect. But since this is an event that happened before the narrative present, the past perfect is necessary to situate the reader in time.

When there is an extended sequence the takes place in the past, the clunkiness can be avoided by creating a "past perfect sandwich." Start the flashback passage with the past perfect to signal the timeframe of the action and then return to the past tense for the rest of the section. The final verb should return to the past perfect to signal the end of the flashback section.

She had fought on dragonback in the last war and barely escaped with her life after being badly burned by dragon fire. Her recovery was long, requiring years in and out of healing centres. She'd had to take countless potions and medicines.

This paragraph not only reads smoother than the first, it is also more concise. The past perfect often requires more words to get its point across, adding to its clunkiness.

Note: When changing from the past perfect to the past, it is often not as simple as just removing the had from in front of the past participle. Some additional rewriting might be necessary to smooth out the text as is seen above.

Depending on the context of the paragraph, it may not be necessary to return to the past perfect tense for the last sentence. In flashbacks or daydreams, the return to the narrative present can be signalled by an action beat.

She had fought on dragonback in the last war and barely escaped with her life after being badly burned by dragon fire. Her recovery was long, requiring years in and out of healing centres and endless potions and medicines.

She rubbed the burn scars on her arms, bringing her back to the present.

Note: How many verbs should be in the past perfect before switching to the past tense in a flashback section varies depending on many factors including flow, the length of the section and the complexity of the sentence construction. The important thing is to balance reader comprehension with narrative flow. An editor can help you find this balance.

Revision Tip

There is often an inclination to go through a manuscript and delete repetitive and redundant words. This is a good practice, as it can make the writing tighter and more engaging. However, be careful when deleting the repetitive sounding hads. If they are being used to create the past perfect they are usually necessary for meaning and need to remain in the text.

In these cases, see if you can "sandwich" the section, but make sure that the actions' relation to the narrative present remains clear. Sometime the repetitive hads will be necessary to maintain clarity.