Hello!

I am a little confused with - mıştı / -dı. I know how to use- mıştı when it refers to an action before another action, but in narrations these two often appear consecutively without any referrence to one of them happening earlier.

Some examples from my textbook:

(...)Tam bu sirada solundaki yolcu inmek için şoföre seslenmişti. Araba durdu, solundaki indi. O da boşalan yere kaydı.(...)

(...)Zaman geçmek bilmiyordu. Nihayet sınav sonucunu öğrenmişti: Trabzon Psikolojik Danışmanlık. O sırada İpek´in gözleri doldu. Çok mutluydu. Tüm ailesi sonuca çok sevindi (...)

(...)Motordan ilk inen profesör oldu. Onu esmer delikanlı takip etti. Delikanlı, ıslıkla hareketli bir şarkı çalıyordu. Kasap koşa koşa bir çocuk gibi gözden uzaklaşmıştı. Sarışın kadın en sona kalmıştı."

Any clue how to differenciate between them in narrative contexts like these?

-miş: i heard it from someone, i have not personally witnessed it.

John gelmiş. : john came but i havent seen him coming, a friend told me or i saw the records from security cam etc.

John geldi : John came and i personally saw his coming.

like present perfect and past perfect, if i want to tell something used -miş at that time in the past, yesterday or a week ago; i use -mişti. (-miş and -di together)

john gelmişti. : John had come / John came : I personally not witnessed him and all that is now in the past.

the explanation is my own and may include wrong stuff. someone else can do a better exp.

I think it´s a good explanation but this part is a little off.

John gelmişti - John had come 

John gelmişmiş - John reportedly had come - I personally had not witnessed him. Past Perfect Reported form.

At least that´s how I understand it. https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96%C4%9Frenilen_ge%C3%A7mi%C5%9F_zaman%C4%B1n_riv%C3%A2yeti

I don´t think I can give a great explanation. mıştı is often used for distant past. These 2 tenses, past and past perfect, can get mixed in English as well. Here´s an example:

We had spoken to each other a year ago. He told me...

You guys are making a big mistake. Gelmişti does not mean İ heard it and it´s in the past. The -di makes it real, not hearsay. İt means an action that started and finished in the past. He had come. I never heard of any rule or order of placing the mişti anywhere specifically. İ lived in Turkey and İ have a lot of friends to whom İ talk and write Turkish on a daily basis. There is no so-called pattern. You use it when you want to describe something that started and finished in the past. Also depending on the situation you can use it to convey the meaning of repetition of a past action, because it has already finished anyway. ´Orada çalışıyordum´- ´Orada çalışmıştım´.