paint@intergate.bc.ca wrote:

       Now, her darling baby boy had returned, all grown up.
       And she might have to kill him.

[cut]

The problem is the tense agreement, "had returned" versus "might 

have to

kill".

------RM

The problem is actually in the first sentence. "Now" requires the 

present

perfect, not the past perfect.

  He has returned now.
  He had returned now.

This is wrong.  "Now" does not affect the tense of the verb at all -- 

if

the story is in past tense, this sentence should be past perfect, since
it refers to an event earlier in the story.

   While this is true, I believe that paint is at least partially right.  
I tend to encourage authors to avoid the use of "now" whenever possible 
while writing in the past tense, bacause it can often create sentences 
that just plain have a lousy sound.  (For similar reasons, I discourage 
the use of "here" and "this" in third-person stories).  Unless the 
writer is very careful, these words muck with the perspective something 
awful.
   You could eliminate this part of the problem by identifying when 
"now" is, or just eliminating it entirely:

    That morning, her darling baby boy had returned, all grown up.

    Twenty years after she left him on the nuns' doorstep, her
  darling baby boy had returned, all grown up.

"She might have to kill him" looks confusing unless you know that
English does not have a future tense in the same sense that it has a
present and past tense.  Instead, there are modals indicating
possibility that themselves can be in the present or past tense. 
"Might" is the past tense of "may," and the sentence, in present tense,
would be "she may have to kill him."  The issue is further confused by
the use of "have to" (meaning "must"), which is something that most
grammatical models can't handle.  

Another case of word choice creating a grammatically correct, but 
awkward sounding sentence.  A different verb might help matters.  Try 
the following:

        And she might need to kill him.

        And she might be forced to kill him.

  A lot depends on what the situation is.  If the possibility of her 
killing her child comes from a personal need (for instance, his 
continued existence puts her current life at risk, or he himself is a 
threat to her and those she loves), then option one ("need") is better.
  If, OTOH, an outside party is coercing her (say, Nabiki has decided to 
foreclose on her house unless she silences her kid), then the passive 
voice in option two would be appropriate ("be forced").  Be careful 
here, though.  Passive voice is another potential pitfall--it should 
really only be used when the subject is being acted upon.

In short, your sentence is fine.  It's the grammar rules that are 

screwy

here.  

Yup.  But it's also true that if a sentence sounds "off" to the author, 
it will probably also sound off to the readers.

        Twenty years later, her darling baby boy had returned,
   all grown up.
        And she might need to kill him.

BTW, another person just came by and said that the real problem is that 
the "now" is in the wrong sentence:

        Her darling baby boy had returned, all grown up.
        And now she might have to kill him.

I've got to admit, that looks better to me, too.

So, are you confused yet, RM?

--Freemage

-- David

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