Simple past and past perfect tense

Question

Stories are mostly written in simple past tense.(let's call it past 1) To explain an event that happened even before past 1 we use past perfect tense.(let's call it past 2) Now if we want to add a dialogue in past 2, what shall we write 'he said" Or "he had said"?

Like:
He had sold the monkey.
"It is another mouth to feed," he said/ he had said/he would say.

We don't normally *keep using* Past Perfect just because we need to refer to more than one action that happened earlier than the current "narrative reference time". Your example doesn't give any indication of why you used Past Perfect for *had sold* anyway - but even assuming you had good reason for using it in the first sentence, most native speakers / writers wouldn't *repeat* it (they'd use *he said, not he had said). Note that he would say* only applies if that's something the subject repeatedly / habitually said in the past (unlikely, but possible here). — FumbleFingers, Sep 23 '21 at 15:24
Does this answer your question? If you are writing a long passage in past perfect, is it acceptable to only use it at the beginning and end? Also past simple or past perfect in this case and Is it necessary to repeat "had" in the following sentence? and Repeating HAVE (or other auxiliary verb) in one sentence, among others. — FumbleFingers, Sep 23 '21 at 15:26
If the story is being told through the eyes of one of the characters and that person is briefly thinking back to the sale of the monkey, you can use 'he had said' - but if you are writing a long description of an earlier episode, as FumbleFingers says, it would be tedious to keep on using the past perfect. — Kate Bunting, Sep 23 '21 at 15:30

Simple past and past perfect tense

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