What's wrong with the following sentences.
1)Kevin wrote to Sally many times.
She never replied to his letters.
Yesterday he had a phone call from her.
He was very surprised.
(2)Yesterday Kevin had a phone call from Sally.
He was very surprised.
He had wrriten to Sally many times but she had never replied to his letters.

The first and second paragragh are both right(because they are written in my grammar book). But I'm confused why the order of the sentences would change the tense. And I can just understand the second paragraph. Why is the first paragraph right?

Question

What's wrong with the following sentences.
1)Kevin wrote to Sally many times.
She never replied to his letters.
Yesterday he had a phone call from her.
He was very surprised.
(2)Yesterday Kevin had a phone call from Sally.
He was very surprised.
He had wrriten to Sally many times but she had never replied to his letters.

The first and second paragragh are both right(because they are written in my grammar book). But I'm confused why the order of the sentences would change the tense. And I can just understand the second paragraph. Why is the first paragraph right?

Answer

In the first example, the order of events is chronological. You can use simple tense.

In the second example, the actions in the third sentence happened before the actions in the other sentences. You use past perfect (had written, had never replied) to keep the original chronological order, even though you write the actions in a different order.

Also, the past perfect actions explain why Kevin was surprised.  The historical context (past perfect) to the main actions (past simple).

Answer

In 1), the reference time is mentioned in every sentence: many times, never, yesterday, yesterday (implicit). So, these sentences are kind of independent in terms of time frame.
In 2), the whole story is told in relation to YESTERDAY. The things which happened yesterday are told in simple past and the things which happened before yesterday are told in past perfect (the past in the past).

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