Wordsmith Series

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Sweatin’ the Small Stuff

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Or, Details: How to Find ’em, How to Use ’em

Use details! is an exhortation every fifth-grader knows–that is, if his teacher knows anything about how to teach writing. It’s practically a mantra with me. Details put a reader into the  setting, smelling the popcorn or feeling the sultry air or hearing the sizzle! of sparklers on a warm July evening.

Sometimes the details are easy to find just by closing your eyes and casting back to a memory. But for the quirky and unexpected, you just have to be there. Some writers carry a small notebook to tuck in a pocket or purse and whip out when a sensory impression smacks them: the laugh of a passer-by or a unique body-build. I have sometimes carried notecards for the same purpose, so I can arrange and classify them later.

Anyone can train herself to notice and note details. The test of a good writer, though, is how to use them. You may have read novels that read like inventory lists. Just because you have pages of fascinating notes about  life on the prairie doesn’t mean you have to use them all. I sometimes compare it to making oatmeal-raisin cookies: you don’t spoon out the dough and then poke in the raisins. You stir in the raisins, so they’re integrated with the dough. When it comes to details, you don’t stud your narrative with them to prove how much research you did. You fold them into the action, so they add the scene without distracting from it.

I like to show rather than tell, so here are some examples of how I used random research facts  to enhance a story.

Fact: A “swazzle” is a reed used by renaissance puppet masters to affect the puppets’ voices.

            His lips twitched, but the light was too dim to show it for a smile.  He reached under his cloak and took out a small object, a reed of some kind.  When he tucked it into his mouth, I knew it for a “swazzle,” used by puppet masters to produce a high, shrill voice.  But never used to better effect than that night.  “Easily,” he said, in an eerie tone that made me shiver.                                                                                            The True Prince

Fact: In Elizabethan court garments, sleeves were often made and attached separately.

“Look, lads!” Gregory called.  I looked, and a little cry escaped me.  He had slipped on a pair of beaded yellow sleeves and struck a pose, singing, “In yellow sleeves to honor his maid, he rides far afield with the beauteous lady–“

            “Where did you find those?” I asked, a shade too quickly.

            “Why, here at the bottom of the court pile.”

            From the other end of the table, Master Stewart frowned.  “I’ve been searching for ’em of late.  They don’t belong there, nor on thy twiggy arms.  Put ’em on the pile to be steamed and stuffed.”                                                                                             The True Prince

 

Fact: London Bridge once sported a central tower, where the heads of traitors were displayed.

West of the Bridge, where the exuberant current piled up against the piers on its way seaward, the watermen ply their trade–hundreds of boats, all sizes and sorts, busily ferrying people from London to Southwark and back again, their oars blurring like dragonfly wings.  Little one-seater wherries dart here and there, cleaving a path among the covered barks and cargo vessels, while jeweled barges of the nobility glide on the rise and dip of long oars.

            The sight was so lively, so merry, I almost laughed out loud–until the swoop of a raven’s wing drew my eye to the memorial tower nearby.  Spiked to the wall, about fifteen feet up, the heads of three traitors stared a grim warning to boats and foot travelers alike.  Traffic passed unheeding below their eyeless gaze.                           The Playmaker

 

Fact: Yaito was a bizarre form of Japanese therapy for aches and pains.

Sogoji was beside one of the beds, where Mrs. Lanski lay facedown.  Her dress was unbuttoned, and he was setting fire to her bare back.

            “What are you doing?” I yelled.  He jumped and quickly raked a pile of smoking grass off the lady’s back. 

            “Hazel.  You early?”

            “Not much.  What’s going on?”

            His hands fluttered like startled sparrows.  “When Lula-san has aches and pains, she ask for yaito–“

            The missus herself slowly turned her head.  “Why, Hazel.  Sogoji said you might be over today.  Good to see you, honey.”

            Sometimes you feel like the whole world has flipped over without you–or that you’ve flipped, all by yourself.  I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

                                                                                                My Friend the Enemy

Fact: Intense periods of history breed their own slang terms, and World War II was no exception.  However, no one was likely to use this much slang unless he was showing off:

The next morning Frank asked for cackleberries and gaskets, meaning eggs and pancakes, knowing we never got both.  But Mom just laughed and said he’d learned a new language while he was away.  After breakfast he told her she was the best egg buster in the business and he was off to visit the feather merchants but would be back in time for blanket detail and chow that night.                                                           My Friend the Enemy

 

Fact: Remember vaporizers stuffed with Vicks?  How many kids do, these days?

Sunday was miserable, for a lot of reasons.  We all stayed home from church: I was sneezing and coughing, Estelle was still crying, and Mom just ran out of steam.  As though to make up for it, she kept the vaporizer on all day, filling the house with the nose-biting smell of Vicks as we slept off and on like soldiers with battle fatigue.

                                                                                                My Friend the Enemy

Fact: During late-May through early-June, cottonwood trees release their seeds, which are carried on the wind by white fibers.

  The wind was picking up, blowing fluffy white cottonwood seeds off the trees.  A gusty ghost-shape swirled by.

            “I’ve changed my mind,” Gee announced.  “I want to sleep inside after all.”

                                                                                                The Middle of Somewhere

Fact: Up until a couple of years ago, tourists visiting Big Brutus (a huge electric shovel used for mining coal in SE Kansas) were allowed to climb the steps leading up to the top of the boom.

Finally, Pop returned to take charge of Gee, and when I got my chance to climb to the top of those 150 steps, it was worth the wait.  I could see all the way to Missouri, or it sure seemed like it.  Kent Clark talks about stepping back to look at the big picture, and if that wasn’t a big picture I don’t know what is . . . .

                                                                                                The Middle of Somewhere

Fact: Early movie cameras were temperamental and subject to static-dust.

I sighed; even Sylvie sighed.  Sam straightened up from his camera-crouch and opened the lens, then squirted a puff of air inside with a rubber syringe: his habit after every take, to blow dust off the film.  “It looked o.k. to me.  We don’t have that much film stock to waste.”

                                                                                    I Don’t Know How the Story Ends

Fact: Before the invention of the “Moviola” film-editing machine, silent films were painstakingly cut by hand.

“Here, you need to take this knife and scrape that end of the film–Careful, not too hard.  Just enough to get to emulsion off.”  After scraping, I brushed the frame lightly with glue and lined up the ends exactly on the splicing block.

The whole episode went together like that, a bit here and a piece there, much of it in silence except for the scritch of the knife and the pulse of the overhead fan. . . .  

            Glancing at the Seth Thomas clock on the wall behind me, I gasped.  “It’s been over an hour!”

“Some fun, huh?”

            “I was just thinking–it’s like rearranging time!  Suppose your life was on a film, and you could cut any part you wanted, or move the pieces around to tell a different story?”

                                                                                               I Don’t Know How the Story Ends

As with any skill, practice makes perfect. But finding and using details to enhance your fiction writing is also fun.

 

 

perspective

Point of View, Part Two: Perspective

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In our previous post, we talked about empathy and “feeling with” another person’s point of view. But POV is not just an individual’s emotional response to a given situation, but the angle from which they see it. We call this perspective. Think about point of view from these two perspectives:

It goes deeper: perspective involves the age, life experiences, and thoughts an individual brings to every circumstance in life. Parents and children who have lived together in the same household for a number of years already know some of each other’s thoughts and experiences. But how well do your children or students know you?

Here’s one way to find out, and stretch their young perspectives at the same time.

 

EXERCISE

Imagine how the significant grownups in your life would respond to the following statements. Try to think beyond “No” or “Yes,” “Good idea” or “Are you nuts?!?!” What reasons might they give for their answer?

You: I don’t want to go to church today.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I flunked the algebra test.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I’ve started saving up my yard-mowing (or baby-sitting) money for a motorcycle.

They: ____________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

You: I’d like to get a summer job.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I find a lot to admire in our President.

They: _____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

You: I think going to college after I graduate high school would be a waste of time.

They: ____________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________

Now, choose two of the scenarios above and imagine a disagreement ensuing (it might not take much imagination!). In your notebook, write an entire page of dialogue for each, showing how the discussion would develop.

Before you start, try to be fair to the other party’s point of view. What would their perspective be? Assuming they’re at least 30 years older than you, would age give them wisdom, or simply show how out of date they are? In your notebook, list at least three reasons they might give for their point of view.

Next, evaluate your own reasons: are you trying to understand where they’re coming from, or do you simply want what you want? List three legitimate reasons for your point of view, then write the dialogue.

Is it possible you could change someone’s mind? Or might it just be that you find your own mind being changed, just a little?

 

 

 

 

 

empathy babies

Point of View, Part One: Empathy

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Your point of view (or POV, for those in the writing game) is simply how you see things. It’s not about right or wrong; it’s about information combined with experience. People judge a situation based on what they know about it and how their upbringing, prior assumptions, and personality have taught them to process that knowledge. The conclusions people come to may indeed be wrong if they don’t fit the facts or a proper moral standard, but it’s very difficult to persuade them otherwise if we don’t understand their point of view.

Empathy–even babies can do it!

Emotions are a good place to start, since we share similar emotions with just about everyone else on the planet. To “feel with” another person is to empathize.*

Ask your students to stretch their empathy muscles with this simple exercise.

The three paragraphs below describe a scene or circumstance from one person’s POV. In your notebook, write a paragraph describing the same scene from the other participant’s POV. Use your imagination to get into the other character’s frame of mind, even it you don’t have much sympathy for their actions.

  1. At 10:50 I was getting ready to close up for the night. The convenience store was empty except for one customer, a young, scruffy-looking guy who didn’t seem to be in a hurry. I turned off the lights in the back half of the store to give him a hint, and heard a cough and a sniffle in reply. Returning to the counter, I was relieved to see him shuffle forward with a six-pack of beer and a box of diapers, size 2. He plunked a twenty on the counter as I rang him up, and when the cash register opened, I noticed the barrel of a handgun pointed at me. Was my vision blurring, or was it trembling? “Give me all you’ve got,” the man demanded hoarsely.
  2. The snow had stopped but temps were well below freezing when Dad put a snow shovel in my hand and pointed to the driveway. Sighing, I wrapped up in coat, scarf, and mittens. As I stepped out the front door, my boots sank six inches into snow. I hadn’t even reached the driveway when a ball of fur charged and nearly knocked me over. “Down, Ranger!” I commanded. But my sheepdog was as “up” as I’d ever seen him. Barely out of puppyhood, he’d never seen snow and it drove him mad with joy. Worse, he seemed to think snow shoveling was a game of keep-away. He jumped at the shovel with every dig and it’s a wonder he didn’t get his nose whacked.
  3. I was on my way out the door when Suzanne stopped me. “You’re leaving already?” she squealed. “We haven’t half finished decorating yet.” “I have plans,” I told her. “You only said we’d be needed for an hour after school.” “I miscalculated, all right?” She was actually red in the face, and I could feel the pressure building up in her like steam in a teakettle. “Three people I was counting on didn’t show up at all, and Arthur has a dentist appointment he can’t get out of, and Amber had to rush out to get the streamers that were missing from the supplies we ordered. I’m really shorthanded here, and the dance is starting in less than two hours. I really need your help!”

In each of these scenarios, verbal and visual clues should let you in on what the other character might be feeling (even if it’s a dog!). You might even be able to guess where those feelings are coming from.

Emotions are often easy to detect, and sometimes even easy to feel. But what about another person’s thoughts? That’s a subject for my next post.

* What’s the difference between empathy and sympathy? We can put it very simply this way: To empathize is to “feel with” another person; to sympathize is to “feel for.” In my opinion, empathy is a useful mental exercise (and writing exercise), but not much use when it comes to helping the other person. You can be hindered, or even blindsided, by their emotions. Sympathy is more helpful, because you can understand the feelings but still reason your way to helpful solutions.

Transitive or “In-“?

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Why do you need to know the difference between a transitive and an intransitive verb? This:

An action verb shows what the subject does, as in

Under the fairy’s enchantment, Percival slept.

Even if the subject, Percival, is not doing anything but sleeping, sleep is still an action verb.

But if the enchantment is broken and Percival wakes up, he’ll probably get busy doing something, such as

Percival explored the castle.

Percival found the tower room.

Percival kissed the Princess.

“Explored,” “found,” and “kissed” indicate that something should be explored, found, and kissed. “Castle,” “room,” and “Princess” receive the exploring, finding, and kissing, so they are the objects of those three action verbs.

Not all action verbs require or even make sense with an object. It’s hard to find an object for “sleep.” I sleep in a bed sounds okay, but I sleep bed does not. The snail creeps along the garden wall is fine, but The snail creeps garden wall is weird. Not to mention creepy.

In the same way, action verbs that almost always take objects sound oddly unfinished without them: “Tyler hit,” “Leslie stabbed,” and “I grabbed” leave us wondering what was hit, stabbed, or grabbed. Depending on the objects of those verbs, the scene described could be bloody or bland. For example,

Tyler hit the intruder with a baseball bat, Leslie stabbed him in the leg, and I grabbed his gun as he went down.

 Or, Tyler hit the books, Leslie stabbed the air with a pencil, and I grabbed my lecture notes. It was going to be a serious study session, for a change.

 

Verbs that generally take an object are called transitive verbs, because they transfer the action to a person or thing. Verbs that generally don’t take an object are called, logically enough, intransitive verbs.

But many verbs can be one or the other; you rely on the context to make the call. Our chilly cook above, for example, is understanding the verb “chill” as intransitive. Maybe because that is his inclination already. More likely, the recipe assumed an object, namely the dish under construction, as in “(You) Chill [whatever it is you’re making] in the fridge for an hour.”

Or how about this:

I tripped

(intransitive) indicates I’m a bit clumsy, or wasn’t watching where I was going. But

I tripped Jared

(transitive) indicates I’m a bully, or possibly that I want to stop a bully.

If you’re not sure whether a verb is transitive or intransitive, ask it a question. That is, ask “what” after the verb:

Percival slept what? (Nah–must be intransitive)

Percival kissed what? (Now, that’s a real question! A princess, or a toad?

I hope that clears up the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. Just don’t be tripping anyone.

 

So, I have to write this report . . .

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or, How Not to Bore Your Teacher to Death–or Yourself

Report-writing may not be as common as it used to be in the old days (that is, when I was in school), but once in a while your teacher may ask you to unplug the PowerPoint and write a one-to-two-page book report, biographical sketch, or science-fair exposition.  This is not an overwhelming challenge if you take time to organize your material and put it together in clear paragraphs.  If you have trouble with that, check out Wordsmith Craftsman; organization and clarity are big subjects beyond the scope of this one little tip.

But let’s say you understand the basic principles of sentence and paragraph construction, and know how to make an outline and follow it.  There’s still the possibility that your report will be less than stimulating (in a word, boring), both to write and to read.  Frankly, teachers are accustomed to boring reports and are pleased if they just make sense.  But they’ll sit up and take notice if you add a spark of imagination to your reports–as long as the spark isn’t just fireworks to cover the fact that you don’t know what you’re writing about.

Some teachers like to give “creative” report assignments.  Others leave the choice up to you, and still others may not appreciate your flights of fancy at all.  Use your judgment, but a dash of creativity will make your report not only more interesting to read, but also more fun to write (really!).

You could begin a biographical sketch with, “Martin Luther King was born . . .” etc.  Or you could study a portrait or two contrasting news photos and describe the character you see in that face.  Back up your analysis by the three pivotal events of his life that shaped that character, and include the portrait or photos with your report.

You could open a report on the Constitutional Convention of 1787 with this sentence, “The first governing document of the United States was called the Articles of Confederation . . .”  Or you could take the point of view of a delegate summoned to Philadelphia and shut up in a stuffy room with the other sweating delegates to draft a new governing document.  A entire report written that way would amount to a novel, but a longish opening paragraph describing the room, the smells, the sounds, and a few of the famous delegates would set the scene and interest your reader enough to keep reading.

In my seventh-grade Texas history class I wrote a paper titled “Sam Houston and I,” whereby I took a time-machine trip back to 1840 and interviewed the President of Texas.  Is this an approach that might work for your next history project?

Here are some other ideas to keep in mind for those mid-semester papers:

BOOK REPORTS (fiction)

  • Describe the climax of the story from the antagonist’s, or villain’s, point of view.
  • Interview the main character.
  • Imagine a date with one of the main characters–where would you go?  What would you talk about?  How would he/she behave toward you?
  • Insert yourself into the climax of the story as an additional character, and describe how you change the action.

SOCIAL STUDIES REPORTS

  • Write a dialogue or debate between two historical characters who held opposing views.
  • Write the history of an object seen in a museum.
  • Write a newspaper “editorial” presenting one side of an historical issue.
  • Take pictures or buy postcards at an historic site.  Use them to illustrate your own brochure, with captions, quotes, and interesting facts (you can make up the captions and the quotes, but not the facts!)

SCIENCE REPORTS

  • Interview a scientist who is famous but now dead.
  • Write a radio play describing activities of the body, or any other scientific process.
  • Using the brochure example above, make and illustrate a brochure promoting travel on Jupiter, or “Black Hole Theme Park,” or a thrill ride through the circulatory system.

It really doesn’t take much to shake up the average school report. What further ideas do you get from these ideas?

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Six Ways to Drive an Editor CRAZY

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Famed editor Maxwell Perkins once remarked that “style” is nothing more than one author’s decision to misuse the rules of grammar. My former agent once said, “There’s a fine line between ‘style’ and sounding like a moron” (much like this fine line, I suppose).

rock band GIF

What I often say is, you have to obey the rules before you can break them. If there’s one place for obeying the rules, it’s in an author proposal.

The first step in getting a book published (by a publisher other than yourself) is submitting a query letter to an editor or agent. The letter is a three-paragraph pitch that introduces you, tells what your project is about, and explains why you are qualified to write it. If the editor is interested, she may ask for a formal proposal that goes into more detail about the work. It’s very easy to tank the project at this point, even if you have a killer plot or subject in mind, because your grammar trips all over itself. Editors are grammar sticklers—go figure.

Per that same agent, here are six common errors in author proposals that drive editors crazy:

  1. Novelists who overuse exclamation marks–as though the period key didn’t exist!
  2. “Writers” who seem to believe that all “emphasized” words belong in quotation marks. You know—“quotation marks.” Here’s an “idea”: cut it out.
  3. Your/you’re; its/it’s; there/their/they’re. We’ve talked about this.
  4. Ewe can knot relay on you’re spell chequer to catch everything. On the other hand, don’t ignore it either.
  5. Repetitive paragraphs. The agent suggests that you “print out a copy of your proposal or manuscript and look it over. If the first word of every paragraph is the same, you need to go back and change it. (Unless the first word of every paragraph is ‘I,’ in which case you need to be slapped by the person sitting next to you, then go back and change it.)”
  6. Dangling parentheses. That is, failing to include the close parenthesis (like this. It leaves editors dangling. And fuming.) (True confession: I do it all the time.

If you don’t make any of these mistakes, well . . . maybe you should write a book proposal.

This post originally appeared in the Wordsmith Teachers’ Lounge newsletter. The Teachers’ Lounge covers a wide range of topics and writing miscellany, with occasional giveaways. To receive the Teachers’ Lounge in your own Inbox (almost) every Wednesday, sign up here.

 

conan

The Worst Novel Ever Written

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What can you learn from bad writing?

You may have your own candidate for Worst Novel, but the general consensus, especially among sci-fi/fantasy fans, is The Eye of Argon by Jim Theis. It’s best described as a heroic fantasy on the model of Conan the Barbarian, whose protagonist burns and slashes his way from captivity to a ride into the sunset with his barbarian date. Self-published in a local fanzine in 1970, it found its way to the west coast and eventually online, where it became the target of mockery and geeky parlor games. To be fair, the author was only 16 when he wrote it, and he was so hurt by the novel’s reception he vowed never to write anything again (per Wikipedia).

That’s sad, because something could have been made of the story if he’d worked harder at his craft. The plot and pacing are not bad (judging by the chapter outline) and the visual imagery is sometimes striking. For example, here’s the opening paragraph, with misspellings and minor grammatical errors corrected:

The weather-beaten trail wound ahead into the dust-racked climes of the barren land which dominates large portions of the Norgolian empire. Age-worn hoofprints smothered by the sifting sands of time shone dully against the dust splattered crust of earth. The tireless sun cast its parching rays of incandescence from overhead, halfway through its daily revolution. Small rodents scampered about, occupying themselves in the daily accomplishments of their dismal lives. Dust sprayed over three heaving mounts in blinding clouds, while they bore the burdensome cargoes of their struggling overseers.

The chief fault is overwriting, a weakness that besets the blood-spattered, chest-heaving whole. Much could be improved with a simple strikethrough. Such as

The weather-beaten trail wound ahead into the dust-racked climes of the barren land which dominates large portions of the Norgolian empire. Age-worn hoofprints smothered by the sifting sands of time shone dully against the dust splattered crust of earth. The tireless [noonday] sun cast its parching rays of incandescence from overhead, halfway through its daily revolution. Small rodents scampered about, occupying themselves in the daily accomplishments of their dismal lives. Dust sprayed over three heaving mounts in blinding clouds, while they bore [and their] burdensome cargoes of their struggling overseers.

Substitute punchier adjectives and verbs for the lackluster ones, and you’d have an effective scene-setter. Unfortunately the quality descends as the purple prose becomes ever more bruised, making the novella a punching bag for aspiring writers who think, “At least I can do better than that.”

All writers can do better. One way to improve is by considering what the problem is with bad writing and how it can be fixed. The Eye of Argon offers a ready-made tutorial, especially for older teens who are interested in fantasy writing. Try pulling a few paragraphs from the original text and revise them to be shorter and punchier. You could learn a lot. (Warning: The storyline includes lots of overwritten blood and gore.)

This post originally appeared in the Wordsmith Teachers’ Lounge newsletter. The Teachers’ Lounge covers a wide range of topics and writing miscellany, with occasional giveaways. To receive the Teachers’ Lounge in your own Inbox (almost) every Wednesday, sign up here.

 

may be a writer

You May Be a Writer If . . .

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What’s a “writer”? You don’t necessarily have to be published, much less occupy an author page on Goodreads or pontificate on news programs about your field of expertise. Raw talent and an appetite for well-placed words are necessary but not essential (if that makes sense). What makes a writer is the compulsion to write.

Speaking personally, I didn’t want to be a writer until my mid-twenties, but even before then I sometimes felt compelled (outside of English class!) to put words on paper. Even back then, what pushed me was a sense that time was passing, experience flowing through my fingers like water, and I couldn’t claw any of it back. But I could make a record of it. The right words, in the right order, might capture some of those fleeting moments and hold them in graphite until someone—maybe me—threw them out.

You may know how to write well, but are you a writer? Here are a few indications:

  • You catch yourself editing ad copy, cereal boxes, and electric bills.
  • Coming up with the perfect simile makes you happy for a whole day.
  • Getting to know your characters is like falling in love.
  • You experience plot resolutions in the shower.
  • At least once for every page of the latest best-seller, you think, “I could do better than that.”
  • Your first rejection letter feels like a Rite of Passage.
  • No sooner have you given up on getting one novel published, you’re thinking about another.
  • You hate doing it, but you hate not doing it even more.

Can anybody relate?

dependent clause diagram_0001 (2)

Everything You Need to Know about Subordinate Clauses (almost)

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I’ll just get this one out of my system:

So. A clause with an e on the end can be a) a separate item or provision in a contract, bill, or treaty, such as those “Terms of Service” nobody ever reads. (Ethics question: Is it lying to click “I have read the Terms of Service” when you haven’t read the terms of service? Is it a situation where you’re expected to lie, so it isn’t really lying? Discuss amongst yourselves.)

Fortunately, we’re talking about the other clause—the grammatical kind. A “clause,” in this sense, is a group of words with a subject and a verb that’s almost a sentence, but not quite. What makes it “not quite” is usually the addition of a subordinating conjunction. Observe:

James went to the theater last Saturday.

This is a complete thought. It tells you what James did, and when.  But this—

After James went to the theater last Saturday

–is not complete. It leaves us hanging. The only way it could seem complete would be if it answered a question (such as, When did Milton let the dogs out?). Otherwise, we can’t leave it alone; we want to poke and pry until we get some closure about James and the theater.

Dependent clauses (also called subordinate clauses) include a subject and verb like every sentence should. But they are not complete sentences because they depend on another complete sentence to make sense. Dependent clauses can function as adjectives (modifying nouns) or adverbs (modifying verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs).

  • Adjectival clauses are often called relative clauses because they relate the clause directly to a noun. Who, whose, that, and which typically introduce a relative clause:

The book that she wrote about leeches will be available next month.        (Modifying book)

A hobbit is a small person with furry feet who lives in a shire.                       (Modifying person)

  • Adverbial clauses are introduced by words indicating when, where, or how, such as when, where, before, after, during, while,

You had better finish your homework before the Smiths arrive.

Do you remember where you left your keys?

While Heath was climbing the fence, the rottweiler snapped at his heels.

  • But there’s more! Noun clauses. In this example, the entire clause what is showing at the cineplex this afternoon serves as the object of the verb checked:

Harry checked what’s showing at the cineplex this afternoon.

And here, the clause that you showed your work for each problem is the object of see:

I want to see that you showed your work for each problem.

And here, Whoever comes along with me is the subject of the whole sentence:

Whoever comes along with me should ask their parents first.

One more subject clause: What happens when atoms collide.

What happens when atoms collide is the topic of tonight’s science talk.

Did you notice that’s a clause within a clause? When atoms collide modifies the verb happens. Here’s how it looks in a diagram (because you’re dying to know!):

Dependent clauses can do all kinds of tricks: hanging from, curling up within, balancing over. Impressive! The linguist Noam Chomsky defines this capacity of enclosure (i.e., language units within other language units), as the distinctive mark of human language. That may not be true—human languages without that capacity have been discovered—but it’s pretty cool anyway.

There’s another type of clause we should look at, but it deserves close and philosophical consideration all by itself. That’s up next!

hedgehog

Of Hedgehogs and Semicolons

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I see you there, winking at me, you coy minx. 😉 To life’s most profound questions, I add

Why do you exist, semicolon?

You just wink and keep on existing.

Some editors can’t stand them. Victorians adored them. Certain authors, even today, overindulge them. And many, many writers don’t know how or when to use them.

That leads me to my topic today:

The dreadful comma splice.

It’s one of my literary pet peeves. True, commas are more of an art than a science. In my experience with copy editors, half of their job seems to consist of removing the commas I put in, and occasionally adding the commas I left out. I’ve learned to do a lot of the removing for myself when I do my own copy editing. (For instance, should the comma between “in” and “and” in the sentence above be in or out? In, or out? You decide!)

I converted rather late in life to the Oxford comma, which deserves its own separate post. But I feel no ambiguity, absolutely none, about comma splices. Seeing one has the effect on me of chalk-squealing or knuckle-cracking. What is a comma splice? I’ll explain.

a) This is a sentence. b) That is another sentence.

No debate there. Each of the above sentences has a subject (the demonstrative pronouns This and That) and a linking verb (is). Also, each expresses a complete thought, mundane as it is.

Suppose, for some occult reason, we wish to join these two sentences. One simple way is by using a coordinating conjunction:

This is a sentence and that is another sentence.

Oooo-kay. Seems obvious. To raise the stakes a little we could introduce a contrast:

This is a sentence, but that is another sentence.

Interesting point. But the grammatical point is that a) and b) are complete sentences, with equal standing under the laws of grammar. They may be joined only by coordinating clauses such as and, but,  and or.

Unless . . .

One uses a semicolon to join them.

This is a sentence; that is another sentence.

To the editor who despises the semicolon, I say, “Come on! This is its only job! Let the kid do its job!”* In this example, I like the semicolon form better than coordinating conjunction form, but maybe that’s just me.

One thing you must never, ever do is give that job to a comma:

This is a sentence, that is another sentence.

It doesn’t even make sense. Or rather, it makes even less sense.

Who, me?

What does any of this have to do with hedgehogs? I came across this link recently: “Our Top 13 Delightful Hedgehog Facts,” from the UK National Trust. Being a sucker for hedgehog facts, of course I clicked it. The facts are delightful, but the comma splices almost ruined it for me. Go ahead; see how many you can find. (And this from the Brits, who should know better!)

In conclusion, I admit that I’m one of those authors who overindulges the semicolon; it’s a habit I’m trying to tame. But surely there’s a time and a place for them; it just takes practice (and copyediting) to determine when and where. Just don’t try to sneak a comma in where a semicolon rightly belongs; there’s no excuse for it.

*The other use for semicolons is separating items in a list where commas have to be used, as in: “Mr. Pringle purchased pencils, paper, and paperclips; pansies, periwinkles, and petunias; and a puppy.”

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