When I was a baby newspaper reporter, one of my editors, Grady Holloway, used to call me over to his desk. A lot.
I loved Grady. He had this great, grizzly beard before it was cool, wore a dirty hat, had been married to an ambassador’s daughter, rode horses, drove cab in Colorado when all the beat poets and journalists were out there, and liked noir mysteries.
But whenever he pulled me over to his big metal desk in the newsroom, I knew that I was about to get advised.
“Cici,” he’d say with this perfect, gruff whiskey voice, “you’re a great writer, but have you ever thought about . . .”
And then he’d tell me something I hadn’t thought about.
- Passive verbs.
- Starting sentences strong with the important stuff first.
- The dreaded -ing
-Ings are addictive like all sexy grammatical elements are. They might not be as addictive as the debonair em-dash (—) or the lovely ellipses (…) or the goddess we know as the parenthetical ( ), but they are pretty close.
When you put -ing at the end of a verb that verb becomes progressive. You feel like the verb is happening right now in the present even if your tense is the past. Like this . . .
She was running, breathing hard and fast, shallow breaths that couldn’t quite make it all the way into her lungs. Running so that he wouldn’t catch up. And the ground was breaking beneath her, dead people’s hands reaching through the woods’ surface, fingers trying to clutch her sneakers, her ankles, even the laces. Anything.
Scary, right? Or, um . . . kind of?
Now let’s see that without the -ings on there.
She ran, her breath hard and fast, shallow breaths that couldn’t quite make it all the way into her lungs. She ran so that he wouldn’t catch up. And the ground broke beneath her. Dead people’s hands reached through the woods’ surface. Fingers tried to clutch her sneakers, her ankles, even the laces. Anything.
Wait. They both kind of work, don’t they? Absolutely. Sometimes you want to use those -ings for impact. But just like the em-dash, ellipses, and parenthetical statements, there can be too much of a good thing.
Crying because of the creepy man racing after her for five terrifying minutes, Carrie raced through the woods trying to get away and breathing out heavily even as horrifying zombie hands reached through the dirt and pine needles, hoping to grasp her shoes and bringing her down beneath the surface with them.
You can see the difference now right? We have present participles, adjectives, progressive verbs and even a gerund. Those -ings are doing a lot of work here and there’s just too darn many of them.
And what happens in that passage? The reader starts to get bored. It doesn’t feel fluid. The mind sort of numbs from all those -ings. And the bleed into each other, blending.
Yes, yes, I know! Blending has an -ing.
Now, let me try to do it without -ings.
She cried. She ran through the woods, each breath a prayer, an intake of hope as her feet raced across the pine needles. He was close. Too close. The thud of his footsteps pounded after her. The dirt trembled but not from her. Hands. Dead, decayed hands somehow broke through the hard ground. One poked up just as her sneaker hit the ground. It reached for her. Missed. Another tried. Another.
Different again, right? Same scene. No -ings. It’s pretty cool when you can see the difference of tone and feel that happen just by playing with one tiny element of the language.
DOG TIP FOR LIFE
Notice things. Don’t drop the goods when you’re running away.
PLACE TO SUBMIT
Rejoinder. The Archival is Political special issue. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, cross-genre, drama, graphic narratives, interviews, art, photography. No fee. Deadline: December 15, 2023.
Ploughshares. Regular Reading Period. Fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translations. $3 fee (free for subscribers). Deadline: January 15, 2024.
Burnside Review Press. Book Contest. Poetry. $25 fee. Prize: $1,000, book publication, 10 author copies. Deadline: December 31, 2023.
COOL WRITING EXERCISE
This one is from Reedsy,
Play a game of Truth and Dare with your characters
Most of us remember “truth or dare” from childhood sleepovers. Some would bravely declare “DARE!” and wait for the inevitably embarrassing challenge. Others would hazard a “truth…?” and wait nervously in their sleeping bags while the challenger mulled over which deeply provoking and juicy question to ask.
To dive deeper into your character’s emotional depths, ask a round of questions — both probing and seemingly innocuous alike. (Hey, you never know when your character’s favorite choice of ice cream topping might come in handy!) We recommend downloading our free character profile template — with the help of this worksheet, you’ll be raring to go.
BEST RANDOM THOUGHT EVER
Well, it’s just that . . .
This is the best song ever.
SHOUT OUT!
The music we’ve clipped and shortened in this podcast is awesome and is made available through the Creative Commons License.
Here’s a link to that and the artist’s website. Who is this artist and what is this song? It’s “Summer Spliff” by Broke For Free.
WE HAVE EXTRA CONTENT ALL ABOUT LIVING HAPPY OVER HERE! It’s pretty awesome.
We have a podcast, LOVING THE STRANGE, which we stream biweekly live on Carrie’s Facebook and Twitter and YouTube on Fridays. Her Facebook and Twitter handles are all carriejonesbooks or carriejonesbook. But she also has extra cool content focused on writing tips here.
Carrie is reading one of her raw poems every once in awhile on CARRIE DOES POEMS. And there you go! Whew! That’s a lot!
