Identify the verb tense in the following sentence: "She counted the letters he had written."

The verb tense in the sentence "She counted the letters he had written" is categorized as past perfect. The past perfect tense is used to indicate that an action was completed before another point in the past. In this sentence, "had written" reflects an action that occurred before "counted," which sets the main past action in the context of a timeline.

This tense is often formed using "had" followed by the past participle of the verb—in this case, "written" is the past participle of "write." The structure effectively communicates that the letters were completed prior to her counting them, emphasizing the sequence of events in the past. Understanding this helps clarify the relationships between different actions and the time they occurred in narrative contexts.