Familiarize yourself with when to use past perfect tense

Some of the editing tips we share are subtle, while others alert you to more flagrant issues that readers will definitely notice.

Today’s falls somewhere in the middle: proper use of the past perfect tense.

Editor Mathina Calliope acknowledges that readers will likely still understand the order of events, if you mistakenly use simple past to describe something that happened further into the past.

But, she says, they’ll subconsciously or consciously know that the grammar was slightly off — and you’d much rather not disrupt your reader’s flow, right?

Read her explanation of simple past versus past perfect on Jane Friedman’s blog.

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