Help me, Grammar-Wan-Kenobi

[astri13]

This is embarrassing but I figure better now than after the fact. I`m doing a little experiment and writing a fic in present tense so now I`m at a bit of a loss. Writing about past actions when do I use simple past and when do I use the "had done..." version? Anyone? Bueller?

Comments

[trueshellz.livejournal.com]

Ouchie, well most of the time you can use the past tense of the verb like leave, leaving and left for example
But you can also use had left
Depends on the sentence structure more than anything else I guess
But thats just me
xxx

[astri13.livejournal.com]

Mostly I have problems with recollections and memories, when someone is thinking of something that happened say years ago. I`ve checked up on other fics and they tend to use the "had been..." for that but then when there is remembered dialogue it suddenly switches back to simple past and I`m totally lost. :/

[trueshellz.livejournal.com]

I think it dialogue it makes sense to use the actual past verb that the 'had done' one only coz it sounds better
Not 100% sure though
x