: What combination of had and 'd makes prose flow better? An example from my writing: Not even a god like Kiyoshi deserved an angel like Kobayashi. True, I had never talked to her. But

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I voted for Erin's response, as it echoes my gut feeling regarding the inferred intent of the speaker. Since I can't add comments yet due to rep, I did want to go ahead and add some additional thoughts here regarding the question itself.

In general terms, I'd suggest that the author should consider whether such an emphasis/distinction is actually meaningful to your speaker. That is, ask yourself whether you are trying to convey some additional clues or subtle signals to convey additional meaning to their statements. Why would the speaker deliberately use the contraction in one instance, while using the full form in the another?

If your speaker is fairly passive about the acknowledgment that they had never talked with her, then "I had never talked..." is perfectly fine as-is. However, this doesn't really seem to fit, given the other provided context: "Not even [...] Kiyoshi deserved an angel like Kobayashi." That seems to imply at least some degree of interest / desire / longing.

Together, with the context, using "True, I'd never talked..." (when contrasted with later usage of "But I had watched her."), would come across as an almost confession-like, throw-away acknowledgment (does the speaker actually regret this, or is it merely a statement of fact?). Then, the speaker would contrast that admission with emphasis on what they did do - they watched / observed her. This emphasis can be conveyed by the deliberately inconsistent use of the contraction in one situation, versus fully expanding the other.

Perhaps, among other things, the speaker is attempting to justify their familiarity with Kobayashi, despite having never actually spoken (or interacted) with her? It could at least be possible that the speaker has a natural tendency to minimize (here represented by use of contraction) things they don't like, while emphasizing (via use of the expanded form) what they do.

Anyway, if those ideas matter to the concept you're attempting to convey via the speaker, then I'd absolutely lean towards the "True, I'd never talked [...]. But I had watched [...]" form.

While this may not strictly relate to the actual flow, I think it can add some nuance and convey subtle clues which reinforce the speaker's underlying motivations.

Side note, related to another answer:
I'd + past participle* = "I had", in all situations. It is incorrect to assert that "I'd" only expands to "I would". When paired with that past participle ("talked", "watched"), "I'd" should easily be parsed as "I had". Unfortunately, this is just one of those crazy, context-based English rules.

* -- Garden path only occurs if "I'd" is followed by a single [written] word which can serve as the bare infinitive, as well as the past participle (such as "read" [as in, "I am going to read that book today"; pronounced as reed] versus "read" [as in, "I read that book yesterday"; pronounced as red]).

Example: "I'd read that book." ("I would read that book [in the future].", versus "I had read that book [in the past].") For this, additional context would be needed to narrow down the actual usage of "read" in this case.

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Of the two choices, I like the second better.

Mainly because it emphasizes the word had--even when it isn't bolded. Read it out loud both ways, even with a flat affect and you'll hear what I mean.

When we use contractions, we sort of gloss over the word.

What you choose will depend on what you want out of it.

The repetition of the word, using the shortened first and then the lengthed naturally draws attention to the word had the second time. The other way around, since there isn't a cue to draw attention to it beforehand, it's not emphasized one way or another.

Using I'd in both cases also doesn't emphasize it either.

You can check for this phenomenon by asking someone to read the sentence and asking them if they emphasize any word in their head simply because of the way it's written. I would bet the majority of folks would find the emphasis on had, simply because of the cadence and order of the writing.

The main reason it draws attention is this: the initial "I'd" shows that the person speaking uses contractions, but then they actually CHOSE to use the long form of the word in the second case, which means that they think that word is IMPORTANT, and they did not before.

EDIT: AS the commenter points out below, the first version puts the emphasis on "watched" I feel it's more subtle than the emphasis of "had" in the second version because attention is not called to it in the same way. If you have someone read version one and ask them, "reading this, which word, if any is emphasized?" you might get varying answers. As for flow--that's going to be largely based on opinion for this sentence. I would base the decision on what subtext you'd like the sentence to have.

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The 'd contraction defaults to expansion into would. It takes a second guess basing on trailing content to expand it to had instead. As result you're creating mild garden-path sentences, which, when unintended, is a type of stylistic error.

Use this contraction only for would where it naturally falls into speech ("I'd like...", "I'd rather...") - and when creating flavor speech, a character that abuses contractions, sometimes hard to understand, hurried, or just crude. Otherwise, if you have no good reason not to, just use the full form, had.

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