If you are writing a flashback ie "she remembered ... ", do you continue the whole sequence in the pluperfect tense, or, once having established that it is in the past, can you switch back to simple past. I've seen writers do it both ways: the first seems clumsy to me, but the second option seems grammatically incorrect.

eg "She had handed him her wet jacket which had been starting to steam in the warmth of the flat. The gas fire in the living room was emitting/had emitted an intense heat, the coils glowing orange. He was/had been wearing a faded green T-shirt and jeans. White jeans. Never trust a man in white jeans, according to Susan.

Any help appreciated!

SG

The way I do it, which a while ago I realised I'd simply absorbed from my reading and never actually been taught to do, is your second version - start in pluperfect then switch into past. Then I switch back into pluperfect for the last sentence or so, and/or start the paragraph that's back in the present/immediate past with a phrase that makes it clear this is no longer the flashback. To me it seems a lot more elegant that way.

This does, I suppose, depend on the length of the flashback. If it's just a couple of sentences it's probably best to do it all in pluperfect, though where the dividing line lies between a short and a long flashback is anyone's guess.

Yes, I also do the second version, unless, as Daisy says, the section's very short. There's nothing wrong with the pluperfect, but long tracts of it can sound unwieldy so slipping into simple past, what I was taught to call the perfect tense, is an accepted convention.

At the end of the flashback, a key word or phrase to remind the reader we've returned to the book's present can be useful, eg the placing somewhere of the word 'now'.

Thank you Daisy and Lammi!



SG

Yes, what everyone's said, though when you're still in pluperfect you can sometimes rejig things so you lose the most awkward of the 'had been having to' and the like. And make sure you bring the reader back to 'now' with you.

Emma

Another useful strategy is, when you are in the pluperfect, to use contractions. So instead of 'She had been walking down the street ...' you have 'She'd been walking down the street ...'

A contraction can also overcome the had had problem: 'She had had a cold at the time ...' sounds awkward whereas 'She'd had a cold at the time ...' is a lot more natural and fluid.