Today is something different. And, perhaps, a touch boring. I haven’t really touched on much of the mechanical aspect of writing but it is, by no means, an unimportant part of writing. This artform is ultimately an art of communication. If you’re unable to get your ideas, thoughts and beliefs across how you want them then you’re kind of failing at your craft. 

As an English speaker and writer, I’m naturally going to focus my knowledge of grammar on the English language. Which is by no means an easy language. Native speakers get things wrong constantly whether it be by poor focus on grammar in schools (of which I’m a product) to trying to mimic speech (which is often riddled with errors) or hiding behind the argument that English is a living language and the rules be damned. I always like to say, rules are meant to be broken but done so consciously and with intent. So learn the rules before you subvert them.

This short grammar lesson is going to be on a rather subtle element of English. It’s going to contrast the perfect versus the imperfect of the past tense. There’s shades of meaning hidden behind how these two subdivisions of the past tense are utilized and I have come across numerous times when I felt that a writer has used one where the other would be better. 

But what are these subdivisions and what are their differences in use?

Both the past perfect and imperfect past relate to an action which was completed at a time relative to another timed event. This contrasts with the simple past which refers to an action completed before the present. The imperfect past, however, describes an action performed over a period of time in the past – or an action which occurred within another event in the past. The past perfect, however, details a brief action completed at a single point in relation to another action in order to show which event occurred before the other.

Confused? Possibly. I find talking grammar is impossible without examples so let’s break it down.

We want to talk about our hero who confronted the dark lord prior to the current action of our story.

For simple past, we would say, “I fought the dark lord.”

For the imperfect past, we would say, “I was fighting the dark lord in my youth” or “I was fighting the dark lord during the Siege of Omarrot.”

For past perfect, we would say, “I had fought the dark lord before the fall of Omarrot.”

So what are the different meanings here? Well, the simple past communicates to us the least information. The dark lord was fought. Period. No relation to anything other than it happened before the here and now. What gets tricky is the difference between the imperfect and the past perfect. 

With the imperfect, we are conveying that the fight with the dark lord happened during a period of time – whether continuously (as suggested with “in my youth”) or while some other extended event was happening (as in the sieging of Omarrot). The past perfect, however, gives us the most definitive information on this battle. Before Omarrot fell, I fought the dark lord. It wasn’t just before now. It wasn’t just while Omarrot was under attack. It was specifically before the battle was lost. 

Obviously, each division of the past tense has its uses and is a tool in our arsenal for writing our story. There only priority over which form of the past you want to use comes down to how you want to communicate to the reader this information. Where I see a number of writers stumble, however, is when they choose the imperfect which has more ambiguity in its timing, when they mean to use the perfect. The perfect is how we determine the sequence of past events relative to each other. If we try to communicate a historic timeline in the imperfect, we’re only going to muddy the series of events and leave our reader confused. 

For example:

“How did Omarrot fall?”

“I remember it clearly. It was a tumultuous time in the city’s history. Fires were burning the land. The skies were thundering with discord. I was a mere squire. The council was riddled with indecision and petty squabbles. They weren’t able to lead their delegations to the neighbouring courts and this was adversely isolating the people and making them vulnerable. The dark lord’s armies were amassing more and more power. The walls were unable to withstand the bombardments. The guard were overwhelmed. But I was not going to forswear my duty. I was fighting the dark lord with my bare steel. The city burned and the generals were ransacking the meeting hall. Even to this day, I can recall so clearly the horror we faced.”

Well, that’s all well and good that the protagonist has some clarity on the matter because, for the reader, this is a bit of a jumbled retelling. With a bit of clearer sequencing – utilizing the past perfect – we can make this passage a bit easier to digest:

“I remember it clearly. It was a tumultuous time in the city’s history. Before the fires burned the land and the skies thundered with discord, I had been a mere squire. The council had been riddled with indecision and petty squabbles for years. They had been unable to lead their delegations to the neighbouring courts and this had adversely isolated their people and made them vulnerable. Meanwhile, the dark lord’s armies were amassing more and more power. When the attack came, the walls were unable to withstand the bombardments. The guards were overwhelmed. But I could not forswear my duty. I had fought the dark lord with my bare steel while the city burned and the generals ransacked the meeting hall. Even to this day, I can recall so clearly the horror we faced.”

Now, I’m not going to argue this is great prose (I’m slapping this together pretty quickly) but see how with the use of past perfect, the meaning of the burning fires and thundering skies has shifted. In the first passage, it reads like the land was burning before the siege (it is written prior to that effect). With the past perfect, it’s suggested that the land burns after Omarrot fell. We’re able to split which actions happened before the siege and, consequently, led to the fall of the city. Now, yes, there are a few more words added to the second passage but that’s necessitated by the fact the past perfect requires specifying when that action occurred. 

Being able to clearly delineate when actions in the past occurred will add more clarity to your prose and help to make your histories easier to follow for your reader. So, when writing past prose, ask yourself:

Is the important reference point for this action just that it happened before the present? If yes, then I probably want the simple past tense.

Is the important reference point for this action that it occurred over a period of time or during another event? If yes, then I probably want the imperfect past tense.

Is the important reference point for this action that it occurred before another prior action to show order of events? If yes, then I probably want the past perfect tense.