How to say Lie/Lay [closed]

So, here's another one of the Lay/Lie questions.

How do you say "she is lying quietly on the grass, under the stars." in past tense?

1. She lay quietly on the grass, under the stars.
2. She was lying quietly on the grass, under the stars.
3. She had lain quietly on the grass, under the stars.

Solution 1:

Direct Answer

If you want to keep the progressive tense (which you probably do), the past progressive

She was lying quietly on the grass, under the stars.

would be correct in this context.

The Difference between the Three Tenses

Simple Past

She lay quietly on the grass, under the stars.

• The simple past is used if the construction includes a more or less precise point of time, e.g.

  I phoned Mary 2 minutes ago.

• The simple past is used if you do not intend to imply that the past action influences anything in the present.

Present Perfect

She had lain quietly on the grass, under the stars.

• The present perfect is used if you do not provide an exact point of time.

  I have just phoned Mary.

• The present perfect is used to describe how often something has happened in the past.

  I have been to Canada twice.

• The past perfect is used if you intend to imply that the past action influences something in the present.

Note that the distinction between simple past and present perfect is more complex than that and depends on where you are. See this answer for more details.

Past Progressive

• The past progressive is used to indicate that multiple actions happened at the same time, e.g.

  Simon was playing on the computer while his brother was watching TV.

• It is used if the action is interrupted by another action or another action starts or ends during the action

  While I was sitting in a meeting, …

Note that this difference is also more complex and that the past progressive is also used for dynamic verbs, which would be too much to explain here, but here is a decent explanation.