Month: June 2006

Jane had me stumped last night as I pondered what to do about the dangling participle problem my writing has (or as I called it, the dangling party nipple).

She sent me a quote from section 5.84 of the Chicago Manual of Style:

“A participial adjective can appear correctly before a main clause, but it is said to dangle when it lacks connection to the noun that performs the action denoted by the participle. This occurs when the participial form is not immediately followed by then noun it modifies. For example, before receiving the medal, the general congratulated the soldier. (“Receiving” should apply to the soldier, not the general.) The same problem arises when a possessive follows the participial phrase — for example, “dodging the traffic, his cell phone got dropped in the street.” The cell phone was NOT the actor doing the dodging. Sentences should be recast to eliminate the dangler, thus improving the style and removing the possibility of confusion as to which noun the participle modifies.”

(Lorna and I were discussing this when Jane’s email came in. I read this aloud to Lorna then muttered “I think I just broke something”.)

I don’t understand much of that so I dug deeper elsewhere. The OWL at Purdue University has a large collection of handouts that explain all sorts of grammar, spelling, and punctuation stuff. I go there often when I am stumped about a grammatical situation.

• Dangling Modifiers
• Verbals:Participles

I don’t have the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), although it is on my Amazon Wish List. I did a Google search for the book and came up with some sites that assist not only with the book but also with style. The University of Chicago Press has an impressive section called “Chicago Manual of Style Q & A“.

I have used the New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage before and I like its readability. I’ve not looked over the CMS actually.

I have a style book title “The Everything Grammar and Style Book“. It is easy to read and follow. We have several other “The Everything…” books.

Hmm, I digressed.

An example from Butch Girls Can Fix Anything:

Putting her wet denim cap over a heat vent, she hoped it would dry before she reached town.

Putting is the dangling participle. If I understand this correctly, it is unclear as to what is the modifier. Or is it? What is she hoping would dry? The vent or the cap? Who was putting the cap?

Others are clearer as to their error:

Kelly put down the metal toolbox, taking her flashlight from its loop on her belt.

Who has the flashlight first? The toolbox?

What makes it confusing isn’t exactly its location – it is the tense.

Putting and taking are Present Participles (as in now). Hoped and put are Past Participle/Tense. I need to fix the sentences so that the tenses match.

She put her wet denim cap over a heat vent and hoped it would dry before she reached town.
Kelly put down the metal toolbox and took her flashlight from its loop on her belt.

The problem with all this is that it is a habit of mine to write this way. I like to change the rhythm of the sentences around as well as put some perceived movement in the reader’s mind. Jane pointed out that in most cases what I am doing is, to quote her, “You have some “construction slumps.” By that I mean, you will say things like, “She began to look….” Just say, “She looked.” Or “After starting the truck,’ Make it “She started the truck.” Getting ready to get ready to do something bogs down the flow of the narrative.”

GOALS:

1. I have to make sure the -ing verbs have a subject close enough to make sense
2. I have to make sure the -ing verbs agree with the other verbs/tense in the sentence
3. I have to make sure I am not pre-pre-showing/telling

Whoever says writing is easy needs to be slapped. Writing is hard so that reading is easy.

UPDATE: Since the OWL links are broken, check out this one instead as suggested by Kiera:
http://bid4papers.com/blog/spelling-grammar-punctuation-mistakes/

You want the reader to go along with you, to feel as if they are there, with the character of the book. Right?

You want to SHOW them the story. TELLING them the story as they read is boring.

I can TELL you how the map of the US eastern coastline looks like. But don’t you know much more if I SHOW it to you?

In the small room Sarah used for her bedroom, there were only the bed, a small trunk for her clothes and a short table for prayers.

The bed, wedged between the two walls, took up all the space along the left side. The right side of the room held a curtainless window beneath which sat the small prayer table, its natural chestnut wood unvarnished. Between the two walls and opposite the door sat the wooden trunk holding most of Sarah’s clothing. That was all the bedroom could hold. Even then, the front of the truck showed smoothed sections where the door–as it swung open and closed–had scraped it repeatedly over the years.

I am rather fond of the second version, primarily because the smallness of the room becomes a point in a discussion later. I need the reader to have in their mind this small room that Sarah retires to at the end of each day. If the room never came up again in a scene, I’d probably not elaborate that much. I might instead focus on the direction the window faced, since it faced the Abbey and she could see the bell tower, something that does come up later.

Can a story have too much details? Can the reader be presented with too many descriptions? Does the reader actually care or do they only want to skim ahead to the sex scene or the sword fight?