Writer's Workshop: Here I Am, Facing My Nemesis

Well... one of my clients asked me the question. The question that haunts my nights and plagues my days. "If you hate -ing participial phrases so much, how can I actually fix it?" This is a really, really big question, which is why I usually default to either giving a specific way to solve it each time or saying, "Do it for yourself." But I've decided today is the day! I'm gonna try to explain as best as I can how to fix this problem once and for all! It's gonna be tough... not all of you will make it out of here alive. But if we fight through, we can figure this all out. "From Hell's heart, I stab at thee!" Let's dig in!

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All right, so for all you confused out there, let's review quick-like. I've said in multiple workshops that I prefer sentences with lots of variety and interesting syntax in my writing. Unfortunately, I see the exact same syntax pop up over and over again in my clients' writing; it looks like this:

He staggered back, reeling from the punch.

This last part is the "participial phrase." (A participial is a verbal acting as an adjective or adverb.) So why is this construction so terrible? Let's look at a slightly different sentence and see why it bugs me so much:

I opened the door, closing it behind me.

That makes no sense whatsoever. A participial phrase is an adjective/adverb, meaning it modifies something in the sentence it's attached to, in this case the verb. But how can someone open a door and close it at the same time? Contrast that to the first example I gave. The fact that he's reeling modifies the action of staggering he's already doing. The participial is less important than the main verb. In this second example, they're both supposed to be of equal strength, but in making "closing" a verbal, it's lost its power. Two actions have been squished together that don't make conceptual sense in tandem.

That's the explanation, but how can we fix it? Let's see how many different ways I can come up with:
I opened the door. I closed it behind me. (Separate sentences)
I opened the door, and I closed it behind me. (Compound sentence)*
I opened the door and closed it behind me. (Compound predicate)
I opened the door; then, I closed it behind me. (Semicolon and conjunction)*
After opening the door, I closed it behind me. (Turn one into a phrase)
After I opened the door, I closed it behind me. (Turn one into a clause)*
I opened the door to close it behind me. (Turn one into an infinitive)
Closing the door followed my opening it. (Turn both into a gerund)
I passed through the doorway and... (reword the sentence entirely)

And this is with a super-clunky, awkward sentence I came up with on the fly! Notice a couple things I did there. With the phrase and the clause, I changed "opened" instead of "closed." In those cases, I decided the "closed" verb was more important than the "opening," so I subordinated the "opened" part instead of the "closed" part. Same with the gerund example: I decided to put "Closing" first because I felt the sentence made more sense that way. You may also notice those asterisks I added. Those sentences are the only ones that aren't simple sentences. If you jump back to 7th grade English, you'll remember that besides simple sentences, there are also compound sentences (two independent clauses bound together with a conjunction or a semicolon, like the first two asterisks), complex sentences (an independent clause with a dependent clause attached to it, like the last example), and compound-complex sentences (doing both of those).

Okay, so maybe you're still thinking one thing: Why should we even bother with this? I've already explained that a verb in a verbal or dependent clause has less importance than a verb in the main sentence. But we can also play with the relationship between the two actions. A participial modifies the predicate, but a dependent clause more creates a relationship. Perhaps temporal ("He bought the hat before he went to his friend's house"), perhaps personal ("That is the man from whom he bought the hat"), perhaps causal ("If you want to live, come with me"). A conjunction creates a much more immediate connection. Look at how words like "but" ("He bought the hat but forgot the ice") or "however" ("He tried to apologize; however, we were hearing none of it") create an immediate contrast between the two ideas. Can't forget "and" ("He bought the hat and lost it on the way"), "or" ("You can buy a new hat, or you can live without") and/or the other host of conjunctions!

But always remember: you have the option to simply strike the whole sentence out and start again. If your sentence has turned into a tangled blob thanks to your -ing verbs, figure out which ideas are most closely related and re-establish the boundary lines. Or, perhaps, you can take the two verbs and restate the action taking place in just one verb instead! ("I opened the door, letting it swing into the wall" becomes "I slammed the door into the wall.")

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I hope you can kind of see what I'm doing here. In my mind, ending every sentence with an -ing participial phrase is like pulling your punch at the last second. You jab with some strong verb right at the start, but then you back off, edging away to talk about something else instead. I believe in you all; you can do better than that. Rely on your verbs, not your verbals. I have many theories as to why this takes place, but the solution, in my mind, is to embrace conjunctions and subordinate clauses. Those two create a meaningful relationship between the two verbs, whereas a verbal just weakly modifies it. If you practice this over time, you'll start to see your sentences improve, no doubt about it. Or you can just sit back, letting your sentence structure rot.

(Or you can just sit back and let your sentence structure rot. Or you can just sit back as your sentence structure rots. Or you can just sit back; however, your sentence structure will rot. Or you can just consign your sentence structure to rot. Or you can...)

Comments

[Lost_Marbles]

Oooohhhhh!

So that's why you don't like -ing partical phrases. It makes a lot of sense now.

I never really understood the weakening impact of these until now. I'm gonna hafta re read this a couple of times to let this sink in.

Thanks for the informative post!