Gerunds
Beginning sentences with gerunds (right now as I first wake up, I think that means "ing" words) is fine by me. To ramble a little since I'm running late -- I AM not a writer who had a solid grammatical foundation, so I will probably not talk much about grammar and punctuation -- particularly tenses and the placement of commas. You'll have to go somewhere else for that, and, anyway the publishing houses usually decide which style to follow and prefer their punctuation a certain way (and my idea of commas and ; don't match theirs)
But I had a question about beginning sentences with gerunds. Apparently some people don't think it should be done. I do it regularly and with intent. What IS important, I believe, is varrying your paragraphs. Do the last five start with subject/verb? Then go back and change one to a gerund, or think how else they might start. Actually, this is one techinque I work on all the time as I write.
The only thing to watch is whether your character ends up doing two things at the same time that can't be done. "Weaving through traffic, he talked on his cell phone). Ok, that can be done but SHOULDN'T. Major pet peeve of mine -- probably since someone drifted into my lane (oncoming!) yesterday. But, as far as I'm concerned. "Running through the woods, she pulled a hankie from her pocket" sounds ok.
That's all for now.
Oh, and watch how many lines your paragraphs have, too, make sure it's not all 4 1/2, 4 1/2, 4 1/2, the rhythm gets static -- boring.
Love
Robin (running for the bedroom and drying her hair...)
But I had a question about beginning sentences with gerunds. Apparently some people don't think it should be done. I do it regularly and with intent. What IS important, I believe, is varrying your paragraphs. Do the last five start with subject/verb? Then go back and change one to a gerund, or think how else they might start. Actually, this is one techinque I work on all the time as I write.
The only thing to watch is whether your character ends up doing two things at the same time that can't be done. "Weaving through traffic, he talked on his cell phone). Ok, that can be done but SHOULDN'T. Major pet peeve of mine -- probably since someone drifted into my lane (oncoming!) yesterday. But, as far as I'm concerned. "Running through the woods, she pulled a hankie from her pocket" sounds ok.
That's all for now.
Oh, and watch how many lines your paragraphs have, too, make sure it's not all 4 1/2, 4 1/2, 4 1/2, the rhythm gets static -- boring.
Love
Robin (running for the bedroom and drying her hair...)
posted by FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens | 6:56 AM
7 Comments:
LOLOL!
I use gerunds. I like them. And sentance fragments. Alot. Really.
Actually, even with a minor in English, my "voice" and characters lend themselves to "gerunding" and "fragmenting." :)
All this is far better than lulling a reader to sleep with noun/verb, noun/verb, noun /verb.
Terri
agreed. I know the language pretty well (also a minor in English) and I like to push the limits.
As far as gerunds... I'm torn as I'm typing this. I use them because they are difficult to avoid. But I try to keep them paired with dialogue.
My greater fault by far is semi-colons; someday a copy editor is going to hate me.
On a related subject you might enjoy reading this book
Eats, shoots & leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation by Lynne Truss
Acurate and funny,
Hi Robin,
You make a great point about using variety. I really have to watch sentence structure. It’s easy to fall into patterns that become boring. Sentence length used to be a real problem for me. I think I used lots of short sentences because it was my fall back when I wasn't sure about the commas, colons, semicolons, and dashes. After I found and devoured Strunk my confidence improved and so did my writing. Gerunds are now my friend.
Strunk is the definitive. It goes with me everywhere.
I have seen Eats, shoots & leaves and it looks good, too.
I LUBS semi-colons!
But I hear that editors hate them and readers don't understand them.
My daughter last year had to write a paper on what puncuation mark she was. I told her flat out-- you are a semi-colon.
She looked it up and said, "Hey, I AM a semi-colon!"
;)
Terri
Gerunding is fun!
John F
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