Narrative tenses are used to talk about 

past events and to tell stories

Narrative tenses are four tenses that we often use for talking about past events.

Past continuous and past simple

When we use these two tenses together, it shows us that the past simple action happened in the middle
of the past continuous action, while it was in progress.
The past continuous is made from the past tense of the verb be (was,were) and the –ing form of a verb:

While I was studying, I suddenly felt sleepy.

Past simple vs past perfect

These two tenses are both used to talk about things that happened in the past. However we use
past perfect to talk about something that happened before another action in the past, which is
usually expressed by the past simple.
The past perfect is made from the verb had and the past participle (3rd column) of a verb:

For example: "I had already eaten my dinner when he called."

In other words, First I ate my dinner, then he called.

The most common of these is the past simple.

 
The other three tenses, the past continuous, the past perfect simple and the past perfect
continuous, can help us to say what we want more efficiently.
 
It is useful to look at these tenses together in the context of the function narrating - relating past
events.

Bond opened the door very slowly, l_____________ carefully around the room and walked in.

The window was open and the curtains w____________________ in the wind. Clearly
someone _______________________ in a hurry.

Past simple
opened, looked, walked, was
 
Past continuous
were blowing
 
Past perfect
had left
 
The first three verbs - opened, looked and walked - are a sequence: they are written in the
order that the actions took place. We know this because they are in the past simple.
 
The past continuous verb, were blowing, shows an action in progress: the curtains started
blowing before he walked into the room and continued to blow while he was there.
What’s the difference between have had and had had?
In the present perfect, the auxiliary verb is always have (for I, you, we, they) or has (for he, she, it).
In the past perfect, the auxiliary verb is always had.
We use have had in the present perfect when the main verb is also “have”:
▪ I’m not feeling well. I have had a headache all day.
▪ She has had three children in the past five years.

We use had had in the past perfect when the main verb is also “have”:
▪ Last weekend I just wanted to relax because I had had a busy week.
▪ The director told me he had had a meeting with the president.
▪

Used to vs would
When we talk about things in the past that are not true any more, we can do it
in different ways.
Used to + infinitive
We can use used to to talk about past states that are not true any more.
We used to live in New York when I was a kid.
She used to smoke but she gave up a few years ago.

Would
We can use would to talk about repeated past actions that don't happen any
more.. Note that we can't usually use would to talk about past states. We cannot use it
with state verbs

Every Saturday I would go on a long bike ride.

Every Saturday I used to go on bike rides…

I used to live in New York.

I would live in New York.