I am writing a story in the past tense and am adding a conversation that happened in the past. When writing the dialogue would I write the tags as, Jim had said because the conversation has already happened or just Jim said. Example: "Your father never liked living here," the man had said. or "Your father never liked living here," the man said. And if the proper way is the "had said" version will that continue an all tags within this dialogue? Thank you.
If I understand your question correctly, you want to recount a conversation that already happened, not set a scene back in time before the actual storyline, yes? In that case, it is "had said" as in: Jim remembered their conversation very clearly. "Your father never liked living here," the man had said. This would continue for all tags. If the conversation is longer, try to limit the number of tags you use so it doesn't become repetitive and obstructive to read.
You can take a short (narrative) trip into the past and write the conversation scene in simple past tense. It will sound completely natural. Use the past perfect to transition to the mini-scene: Jim had visited Perkins Corners a few months ago. While there, he had spoken with Dad's old hunting buddy, Wendell Pace, in front of the old feed store. "Dad used to talk about some of the mischief he and you got into. Sounds like you two really tore up the place." Wendell sucked on his cigarette, and slowly let out a stream of smoke. "Your dad never liked living here. There was never anything happening, so me and him just had to stir the shit. Just plain boredom, ya know. When he finally pulled together enough bucks and enough balls, he was outa here. Never looked back."
Reckon I would try very hard to destroy the second 'had' in my drafting. And I would stick in a 'whilst.' But I have heard many bad things about people's/a transatlantic prejudice regarding the 'whilst.' Jim had visited Perkins Corners a few months ago. Whilst there he spoke with Dad's old hunting buddy, Wendell Pace, in front of the old feed store. ... And the 'Had' issues are notorious for stirring passions on the forum. Everybody needs to be careful with the handling of the 'had zealots' (quote)[my own] c/o The No Had Order (inc.)
I'm sure you had had had enough, back then. I get distressed at/viewing of the 'stupid rules' thread. To me it feels like a pressure group and makes me gnaw on my knuckles, habit.
It depends on how short or long the dialogue is. If it's short, for example, you can Italicise it. "Your father never liked living here," the man had said. -> Blah blah blah. Blah blah blahblahblah blah blahblah, "Your father never liked living here", the man had said. (Not sure if it should start with a capital or not. I have seen both so...) If it's longer, use at least a "had said". The rest should be clearly distinguished by the participant's role in the story. "Your father never liked living here," the man had said. "He did, you impotent liar!" "Did not." "You $%#@ ^% !*#!!...!"
He said vs. he had said, has a difference in tense though. It speaks of the timeline. I don't find this redundant. It might not sound so preferable but not detestable so, when it comes to communicating clearly. When writing in 3rd person, past tense, sometimes, yes, you might want to refer to the "past" of a character's past memory. It's unavoidable. Just don't go on writing "had, could, should" on and on, because it just doesn't sound so nice. Ok, but how else can you refer to a past memory, when writing in past tense in general, without confusing the reader within the timeline, without even saying once "had"? I can't figure out a different way around this.
Cool mate BUT! you are generally speaking in present tense and we already know it, because you are in a forum. And no, referring to a past post you posted a while ago doesn't make it a past memory. So...? The thing is that a writer is asking for a way out. What is your example? I already liked in this thread the options I find functionable enough. What is your take?
Redundancy implies that the word can be removed without affecting the sentence and since "I said" and "I had said" have different stresses and inferences, it's not redundant.
I have never been in a conversation where I said: Yeah, dude, remember when I said she was wearing a yellow dress and and then you said no she was wearing a blue dress. that went like this: Yeah, dude, remember when I had said she was wearing a yellow dress and and then you had said no she was wearing a blue dress.
Writing isn't an informal conversation and most informal conversations aren't held in the past tense. When writing in the past tense "he said" can indicate an action happening at that time in the story, whereas "he had said" can indicate an action that happened previously that is being referred to.
Fair enough, but when we speak, it's much more informal than how we write and that's for a reason. We speak incorrectly due to context and familiarity. We take a shortcut. I've been transcripting conversations for a while. They had to be word by forking word. Would they make sense to the reader? Nope. Not a fu... single chance. They made sense to me, because in order to transcript them, I had to play the goddamned thing on and on sometimes, in order to be sure that what I heard was correct, because what I heard made no sense to me, fifth time in a row. I had to fill up the gaps, by letting some seconds go by the conversation, listening to the context after the pause, to figure out what the freak the speaker was talking about, and that was not unusual at all. I bet that apart from me actually and the person taking the interview, no one else would be able to understand what I was noting down. When writing a book, you want to be realistic, but if you lack being communicative foremost, you are most likely ambushing yourself.
That's not what this was about though. Characters can break all the rules. They can say ain't. They can use double negatives and whatever. But the author cannot in exposition. (IMO)
Well, he can actually if he's writing in third limited, at least he is coherent. That's all I'm saying.
First and third limited (writing a fuse between narration and a character's P.O.V). It's much more relaxed writing. All due measure of course (coherence and aesthetics) but believe it or not, you get to say "ain't" and "fuck" when you find it fitting so. Read some Buckovsky or William Burroughs. You'll understand.
