: Re: 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

@Vandalay250

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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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