tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6824896765631412903.post3032349619574736478..comments2023-09-05T12:51:25.656-05:00Comments on edittorrent: The Trouble with Gerunds, and the Use ThereinEdittorrenthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14295505709568570553noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6824896765631412903.post-89081926220694175632012-11-20T18:24:50.037-06:002012-11-20T18:24:50.037-06:00I'm not sure I'd advocate starting with co...I'm not sure I'd advocate starting with complicated sentences for everyone, but it's a big part of my writing process -- my first drafts are awash in monstrous 5-line multi-semicolon sentences, and then I render those down later by stripping out whatever's bland, trite, generic, repetitious, etc. during my editing passes. This seems to leave me with stronger prose, or at least to get me there sooner, than spending a lot of editing time honing and building up from simpler stuff. It's probably worth noting that I like editing better than drafting, though.James Prayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12509353283987908424noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6824896765631412903.post-84211477882232732732012-11-20T17:21:12.207-06:002012-11-20T17:21:12.207-06:00James, good line about gymnastics. The sentences e...James, good line about gymnastics. The sentences end up meaning something wrong because the writers aren't thinking of meaning.<br /><br />ABE, I'd say default to simpler sentences, and complicate only if needed. alas, most of us start the other way-- we have to simplify the complicated!<br />AliciaEdittorrenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14295505709568570553noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6824896765631412903.post-90944343723215729632012-11-20T01:32:27.863-06:002012-11-20T01:32:27.863-06:00Interestingly enough, in Latin it is impossible to...Interestingly enough, in Latin it is impossible to have a gerund for a subject - the form doesn't even exist - but you can have one for any other function. It seems that you and the grammarians of the Classical age are in sync on this subject!Clare Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12275618718871589963noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6824896765631412903.post-53555000391487027962012-11-17T15:23:41.229-06:002012-11-17T15:23:41.229-06:00Whew!
The very first thing I did was to scuttle o...Whew!<br /><br />The very first thing I did was to scuttle over to my WIP to check whether there are any gerunds in the wrong places, with a deep fear in my soul that I might have this particular flaw.<br /><br />Super glad to say there wasn't a single one in the current scene.<br /><br />My writing is heavily dependent on a gestalt of what is 'right' gained from huge amounts of reading, as I grew up in Mexico and have had no formal instruction in writing my native language since first grade. As a result, I am always learning, especially from blogs such as yours.<br /><br />The biggest problem for me as a reader is that, once I notice a particular awkward construction in a book, and that construction is repeated because it is part of the writer's arsenal, I just can't finish.<br /><br />It really makes me appreciate writers who DON'T have all the awkward little mannerisms.<br />ABEhttp://liebjabberings.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6824896765631412903.post-9582847884726017892012-11-17T14:46:58.837-06:002012-11-17T14:46:58.837-06:00Nice rambly post, but yep, makes sense to me. I re...Nice rambly post, but yep, makes sense to me. I really don't like those constructions -- I can't think of a time I ever felt cornered into using one (in final-draft prose) because there was no other way to get a sentence to do what I wanted.<br /><br />When you mentioned the "sentence variety" reasoning, it highlighted something for me: some writers can get so hung up on avoiding repetition that they resort to gymnastics that are more distracting by far. Some repetition is as good as invisible to the reader, while attempts to cull it out are monumentally distracting (dialog tags being a prime example). Opening with a gerund seems like an easy go-to tool for varying sentence openings, but I think that 1) that's not really what it's "for", and 2) if varying sentence openings is turning into a desperate editing issue in the first place, it's probably not a "mechanical"/prose-level problem.James Prayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12509353283987908424noreply@blogger.com