This malady seems to afflict mostly fiction, although it does crop up in nonfiction and academic writing as well, from time to time. Recently this allergy has become prevalent enough that it must be diagnosed and treated, just in case it proves to be contagious.
Simply put, the "Had Allergy" manifests as a mysterious aversion to the helping verb "had." In some cases, this aversion prevents a writer from ever including the word; in other cases, a writer will compulsively delete the word "had," sometimes with the same mindset they apply to "that." (Some writers know that they overuse the word "that," and when they do an editing pass looking for unnecessary "thats" they are deleting their "hads" at the same time.)
Some of this is a lack of understanding of verb conjugation. Some of it is simple typographical errors.
But I find myself spending so much time adding necessary "hads" that I'm beginning to wonder whether English composition teachers and grammar pundits are actively discouraging it. (Have you seen this? Please post examples in the comments!)
This is tragic, because all these missing hads create ambivalence and confusion.
Let me help you get over your "had allergy" and begin using it correctly.
The Grammar Lesson
"Had" is a verb of its own.
First let's straighten out some grammatical confusion. On one hand, "had" is a verb conjugation all its own. On the other hand, it is also a "helping verb" that adds nuance and specificity to other past-tense verbs (by making them "past participles" which we'll get to in a sec).
Used alone, it is the simple past tense of "to have." So, the present tense:
"I have an aversion to the past participle"
becomes the simple past tense:
"I had an aversion to the past participle"
...once you understand what it is and how to use it. An understanding that may dawn while you are reading this!
That's the easy part. The confusion begins when "had" becomes part of the conjugations of other verbs.
The Imperative "Had"
For example, "had" can be used in front of an infinitive to mean "required" or "needed":
Present tense: "I have to understand this"
Past tense: "I had to understand this"
The Perfect "Had"
"Had" can also be used in front of the simple past tense to create the "past perfect," a fancy grammar term that means "it didn't just happen in the past, it was completed (perfected) in the past."
Since we are learning* to add "had" back into our writing, let's use the verb "to learn" for this example. Pushing our learning into the past, we get:
- the simple past: "I learned"
- the past continuous tense: "I was learning"
- the past perfect tense: "I had learned"
There's also a bonus past tense that needs a "had":
- the past-perfect continuous: "I had been learning"
These are the tenses that too often get corrected into oblivion, into ambiguity. The past-perfect continuous becomes merely past continuous, "I was learning," losing the sense of completion in the past (you might still be learning for all we know, or you might still have been learning when the next thing happened in that sentence or paragraph).
The "Had" Allergy Attack
But the more common mistake by far is the loss of the past perfect tense.
"I had learned" becomes "I learned".
Seems innocuous enough, right?
Yes... except when you're already writing in the simple past and your character talks or thinks about something that happened in the past. Suddenly everything is simple past, and the only clues your readers have are the overt time references you give them. If it's a long-ish reference to the past, especially a full-fledged flashback, it is too easy for your reader to lose track of what happened in the past and what's happening right now (which you're writing in the simple past).
You'll have this problem even when writing in the present tense. A flashback of any appreciable length will often need the past-perfect tense here and there, especially to clarify (in a simple, subtle, concise way) the order of events in your flashback.
Grammar Lesson Part 2
And then there are participles!
Don't be afraid, they mean you no harm! They are here to help, in a cute Ewok way, not a dark Inquisitor way.
The most important distinction between a verb tense and a verb participle is simply this:
- the tense always tells you when the action is happening: right now? In the past? In the future? Is it done yet, or is it ongoing? All that information is coded into the conjugation of a verb tense, like DNA.
- the participle doesn't specify the time of occurrence... it can't do that anymore. The participle form is like super-soldier serum for verbs—it gives them the miraculous power to act like an adverb, or even a noun, without losing all of their verbie active qualities! (This is the sad fate of gerunds, which look like verb participles but have lost all their verbiness and become nouns... but let's not dwell on that here.)
A participle can't serve as the verb of a sentence anymore, though in technical terms it is still a "verbal" (it expresses action or a state of being). Instead, a participle acts like a super-adjective, describing a noun without seeming to be an adjective. (Adjective avoiders, rejoice! This is your secret descriptive superweapon!) Present participles add -ing to the verb root. Past participles add -ed to the verb root (or whatever the simple past tense form of that verb requires). But in their purely participle form, they must describe a noun in the sentence. They look like this:
- Shivering with fear, he crawled away from the tentacles stretching toward him from the pit.
- Burned to crispy black ribbons, the tentacles crunched under his feet.
In the first sentence, "shivering" is a present participle describing "he", and "stretching" is a present participle describing "tentacles." The subject+verb is "he crawled." All the other words are modifiers of those core elements.
In the second sentence, "burned" is a past participle describing "the tentacles," but "crunched" isn't a past participle at all! It is the verb: "the tentacles crunched" is the subject+verb of the sentence!
This is why participles are so awesome: the casual reader perceives them as verb phrases, not adjective clauses, so your writing sounds consistently active even while you are layering in lots of description. They are verb-caliber adjectives, punching high above their weight class as "mere descriptions." Yay, participles!
But ...Where Are the "Hads"?
Ah! Well spotted! I'll let you in on a secret. There was a bit of sleight of hand in the first grammar lesson here.
This wasn't my idea: nearly every grammar book and site will play this trick on you, just for the sake of simplifying verb conjugations. Here's what actually happened in Part 1 of the Grammar Lesson. Watch carefully...
In "The Perfect 'Had'" I said that past perfect and past-perfect continuous were tenses of the verb "learned", right? Well, that's true. I did not deceive you. But I (and 99% of other simple grammar explanations) left out something important because it just complicates things, and usually it's the sort of complication that doesn't really matter. But in order to fully cure you of your "had" allergy, it matters. Here it is...
The past perfect and past-perfect continuous tenses are actually verb phrases built out of the verb "had" plus the participle forms of the verbs themselves! "Had" or "have" isn't a minor add-on helping-verb. It is a full-fledged verb, a conjugation of "to have," and the part that looks like the verb that's being conjugated has taken the participle super-serum.
It needs the strong verb, "had," to enable it to function as a verb tense and convey a timeframe! Without that partner, it loses the power to act in a nuanced way and falls back into its simple tense. Or perhaps it wanders off to look for a noun to modify, if it wants to remain a participle... in other words,
- ...when we were learning to conjugate verbs, we had learned a lie! (or at least an oversimplification that makes us think we don't need "had")
Yes, even the past continuous has taken the super-serum and become a participle: without the full-fledged verb "were" or "was", it can't serve as a past continuous verb at all! In fact, in all the examples I've given you here, only the "imperative 'had'" is a mere "helping verb" in the true sense of the word.
/end The Grammar Lesson/
Now that you understand the proper role and power of "had," it will serve you well. Your allergy is cured. I am confident that I won't have to add a lot of them back into your manuscript if you happen to hire me (or another brilliant Wordsmith associate). Am I wrong? Ask for clarification in a comment!
I hope this has been helpful. If you want more of this sort of grammar-explainer, or would rather see other kinds of articles about the writing craft, let me know in a comment or a message.
Even better, ask me a specific question! I love answering questions. I will tackle it in depth and with practical insights you can apply immediately.
Write well and publish wisely!
*..."are learning" is the present continuous tense of "to learn"—that's what we are all about! If this was helpful, please subscribe and recommend Write Well and Publish Wisely!
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