Don’t
start a sentence with a conjunction; don’t end with a preposition. These two basic rules of English grammar are
the most ignored among fiction writers today, and yet they create PPP.
Here is
an example from the Prolog of SEEING MAGIC:
BEFORE:
I gave up. We had been going back and forth like this
for four days. I knew that there was
nothing I could say that would change her mind.
“Can you at least tell
me what it is?”
“No, I don’t want to
scare you.” But those words scared me
most of all.
AFTER:
I relented, but tried one
last time to learn the driving force behind her decision.
“Can you at least tell me
what this is?”
Her eyes wouldn’t meet
mine. “No, I don’t want to scare
you.”
Those words scared me
most of all.
Eliminating
the grammatically incorrect ‘But’ at the beginning of the last sentence makes the
impact of the words much stronger.
Whenever
I see a sentence start with ‘AND’, ‘OR’ or ‘BUT’ I ask myself one
question. Is this sentence really a continuation of the thought expressed in the
sentence before it? If the answer is
yes, then I rewrite it as a clause to the previous sentence, separated by a
comma. If the answer is no, then I
eliminate the conjunction.
From the
first edition of SEEING MAGIC:
“What the
hell did you think you were doing
yesterday, Buach?” He shouted at Green
Eyes. The man he’d called ‘Buck’ had
taken a step back under the cover of the trees.
He looked a little intimidated by Evan.
But he still wore a sinister grin.
From the
second edition:
“What the hell did
you think you were doing yesterday, Buach?”
He shouted at Green Eyes. The man
he’d called ‘Buck’ had taken a step back under the cover of the trees. He looked a little intimidated by Evan, but
he still wore a sinister grin.
The
technique of using periods to separate clauses instead of commas is common in
marketing material intended to emphasize the story in as few words as
possible. That technique doesn’t work
within a novel. The use of the full stop
causes the reader to stop reading, slowing down the flow of the prose. What the author wants is for the reader to
keep going until the end of the book. Using
a comma, as in the second edition, allows the flow to continue unimpeded.
A while
back, I wrote a pitch for fellow author and friend, Chris Bostic, promoting his
novel, FUGITIVES FROM NORTHWOODS. An
indie publisher, Krill Press, bought the publishing rights and decided to keep
my pitch as part of the back cover.
My
original pitch was written as follows:
“Child
slave labor...that's what it's come down to. After the total collapse of the world economy,
even the United States couldn't stand together, so they failed separately. In the small region-state of Minnkotasin,
poverty and greed have turned the idyllic Northwoods of Minnesota into barren
wasteland of clear-cut forests and over-fished lakes. Every able-bodied teenager is conscripted into
a labor force and sent to work in harsh, prison-like conditions. They're enslaved young so they never learn to
think for themselves. Penn is different,
and he's determined to win back freedom, for himself, his friends, and someday
for his homeland.”
The
editors at Krill Press rewrote the pitch as follows:
“After
the total collapse of the world economy, the United States could not stand
together. So they failed separately. In the small region-state of Winnkota,
poverty and greed are turning the idyllic Northwoods of Minnesota into a barren
wasteland of clear-cut forests and over-fished lakes. Every able-bodied teenager is conscripted
into a labor force and sent to work in harsh prison-like conditions. They are enslaved young, so they never learn
to think for themselves. But Penn is
different. He’s determined to win back
freedom – for himself, his friends, and someday for his homeland.”
Thankfully
the editors deleted the first sentence with the dangling preposition, but
notice what they did after that. The
conjunction ‘so’ is used to start a new sentence. They added a ‘But’ before ‘Penn is
different.’ These deliberate errors in
grammar work in short marketing pitches.
They are PPP in novels.
Chris’ novel is available at http://www.amazon.com/Fugitives-Northwoods-Chris-Bostic-ebook/dp/B00B9676BU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404357395&sr=8-1&keywords=fugitives+from+northwoods/.
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