Timey-Wimey Tenses: Past-Tenseception

Finding the most efficient order in which to tell a story can be a tricky process. Sometimes, a perfectly linear narrative storyline will suffice—the story begins, progresses through a series of events, and then comes to an end. More often than not, however, your narrative will have important background information: events that happened before the book itself began that are important for understanding the plot. Some stories have only a little background information to be worked into the narrative; other stories are made up of fifty percent or more backstory.

When the characters learn a backstory that they didn’t know, it is usually easy to work into the narrative—the audience learns it in the same manner as the characters. Luke finds out that Darth Vader is his father, he wants to find out how this could be true, he asks Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan tells him (and us) the backstory. Simple as can be. Other times, however, the characters already know their backstories, and your task as an author is to find a smooth way to inform your audience of the information.

The problem that often arises with backstory is one of tense: if your story is already written in past tense, then how do you relate information that is even more past tense?

Because it's timey-wimey and past tense within past tense! Eh? Eh?

Past Perfect Tense

The answer lies on our list of the sixteen different tenses in English. Most stories in past tense employ the “Past Simple” tense (Freja picked up the gun and pointed it at the guard). In order to relate events that happened before the current narrative, you simply need to switch to “Past Perfect” tense—it’s the tense that uses the word “had” a whole lot:

     Freja studied the ramshackle warehouse from the pub across the street. There were no signs of activity around it. But she had visited every other building on the list, and had found nothing. If this wasn’t where the cultists were hiding, then the list was wrong.

Most of that paragraph is written in past simple tense: “Freja studied,” “There were,” and “This wasn’t.” But that third, highlighted sentence is relating events that happened before the rest of the paragraph, so it uses had to drop into past perfect tense—even further in the past than the rest of the story.

Many writers forget the hads, leaving background events in the same tense as the rest of the narrative, like so:

     Freja studied the ramshackle warehouse from the pub across the street. There were no signs of activity around it. But she visited every other building on the list, and found nothing. If this wasn’t where the cultists were hiding, then the list was wrong.

See the problem? Now there’s nothing in that third sentence to indicate that those events happened before the rest of the paragraph—it almost sounds like Freja sat in the pub studying the warehouse, left and visited a bunch of other buildings, and then returned. Readers would probably puzzle out what the writer really meant, but it’s needlessly confusing.

So, you can use “had” in past perfect tense to relate events that happened before the current events of the narrative, but there’s still a problem: all those hads can really clutter up your prose. Past perfect tense can become really tiresome to read and to write if it goes on for more than a paragraph or so. For backstory that would take any longer than that to relate (anything you might call a bona fide flashback), you’ll probably want to use another method to share the information.

Past Perfect Introduction

One method is to use a few passages of hads to introduce your flashback, and then transition back into past simple tense for the rest of the backstory. Then, when you return to the “present” events of the narrative, you mark that transition with the word now or something similar. For example:

     Freja approached the warehouse empty-handed and alone. She had learned that weapons and backup would do her no good when she had gone up against the cult at the apartment complex in Copenhagen. She had been armed with an H&K MP5 rifle and her 9mm pistol, and had brought along two AKS squadrons for the raid.

     The first squadron went into the complex through the front doors while Freja led the second squadron through the rear. They rammed in the doors, forgoing stealth for speed and surprise.

     [More events, etcetera.]

     When her backup pistol jammed as well, Freya was forced to withdraw with the rest of the squadron. It had been an unmitigated disaster.

     This time, Freya was armed with only her wits and the small book of spells that Emil had given her. But with her new understanding of what the cultists were, she knew she could stop them on her own. She walked up to the warehouse door and pulled it open.

See how it works? A few sentences of past perfect tense at the beginning (and one at the end) let readers know that we’re jumping backwards in time. This can still be a little confusing for readers if you’re not careful with it, but it is far more readable than umpteen paragraphs of hads.

Break and Flashback

An even clearer method of relating a flashback is to simply use a line break or chapter break to show your readers that you are switching gears and to then relate your flashback in the same tense as the rest of the story. This method is used quite often by many authors. You can find some professionally-done examples in several books that I can think of off the top of my head:

The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan (Book four of The Wheel of Time)—this is the method by which Mr. Jordan related the history of the Aiel when Rand went to Rhuidean. Note that he used an in-world method of delivering the flashbacks; that is, these were memories being projected into the mind of the protagonist, and we received them as he did.

The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson—the first two books of The Stormlight Archive have both featured entire chapters devoted to the backstory of one of the characters (Kaladin in the first book and Shallan in the second). These chapters are scattered throughout the book, effectively serving as a series of flashbacks.

Holes by Louis Sachar—this book is actually unusually complex compared to most middle-grade stories. The story continually jumps around between the “present day” events of the story to the recent background of individual characters to various historical events that pertain to the narrative. In fact, in this book Mr. Sachar employs every single method of delivering backstory that I’ve outlined in this post. If you want to improve your flashback delivery, go read Holes and pay close attention to his tense usage. In fact, that’s your homework—who doesn’t want to read Holes again, am I right? Go do it.

Timey-Wimey Tenses: Getting Future Tense Right

Last time we discussed the sixteen different tenses of the English language, all of which you’ve probably used before. Of course, some of them get used more often than others. All of those “future in the past” tenses, for example—those are complicated and strange enough that you surely won’t need to use them often, right?

Wrong.

The future-in-the-past or relative tense is used when speaking of an action or event that will be in the future for a particular person whose actions are being related in past tense. It’s a bit of a convoluted notion, and that’s why many people consider it an obscure tense when they first encounter it—I know I did. But think about it; the vast majority of stories are written in the past tense, right? So if a story is written in past tense, and the author needs to discuss actions that the characters plan to undertake later on in the narrative—in their future but not ours—then the author will need to use the relative tense.

Yes, I am going to use Doctor Who memes for every single post on tense that I ever write. I may even go back to old posts on tense and put pictures of the Doctor in them, because he can go back in time like that.

As it turns out, authors use the relative tense all the time. Here . . . I will grab the nearest book to me and flip through it; I can almost guarantee that I will find some usage of the relative tense. The book is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (italics added for emphasis):

     The two talked of small matters as they worked. And while they moved around a great deal, it was obvious they were reluctant to finish whatever task they were close to completing, as if they both dreaded the moment when the work would end and the silence would fill the room again.

There you go. The story is told in the past tense—“the two talked” and “they moved around”—but the author needed to refer to a moment that was yet to come for the two characters. The moment is in the future for the characters but not for us, the readers, so the proper tense to use is the relative tense.

I often see errors when it comes to future tense in stories, and it’s usually because writers use the future tense where they should have used the future-in-the-past tense. The mistake might look something like this:

     Callie kept glancing at the clock as she worked. Her shift will finish at five o’clock, and then she will go hunt down the nightbeast.

Callie’s shift finishing and her hunting down the nightbeast are events that are in the future for her, but not for us the readers, since the whole story is in past tense. Therefore, those wills should be woulds:

     Callie kept glancing at the clock as she worked. Her shift would finish at five o’clock, and then she would go hunt down the nightbeast.

Simple as that. Note, however, that if this had been dialog, the normal future tense would have been required. If the narrator is speaking of future events, then you need to use future-in-the-past tense; but the characters themselves still speak of their future in future tense.

     “Callie, you need to take care of this,” Maria insisted.

     Callie glanced at the clock. “My shift will finish at five o’clock, and then I will go hunt down the nightbeast.”

The same rule applies to stories told in the present tense:

     Callie keeps glancing at the clock as she works. Her shift will finish at five o’clock, and then she will go hunt down the nightbeast.

But if you’re writing a story in past tense, keep an eye out for situations where the narrator refers to events that haven’t come yet—these will often require the relative tense.

Tricky, Timey-Wimey Tenses

A few months ago we discussed tense in stories—how most stories are written in either past or present tense and how authors can accidentally switch between the two. On the surface, tense is very simple, right? There’s past, present, and future, and that’s that.

But not really.

Without getting too technical, English grammar has this thing called aspect which alters tense. There are four different aspects, which can combine with past, present, and future tenses to produce twelve different combinations.

But wait, there’s more!

There’s actually more than past, present, and future tense—English also has what is called a relative tense, or a “future in the past” tense. This tense can combine with the four different aspects just like the others, bringing our total of tense-aspect combinations to sixteen.

I’m going to briefly describe each of these tenses, but before I do, I’d like to give a disclaimer: I don’t expect you to remember all of these tenses. The purpose of this post is not to freak writers out with the hidden complexities of the English language. I’m not saying that every writer should be able to identify each of these sixteen tenses by name at the drop of the hat.

The real purpose of this post is to help English-speaking writers understand their language a little better—trust me, just being aware of the existence of all sixteen tenses will improve your writing. It will help you pick out occasional errors a little more easily. You’ve used all of the tenses before; their use is instinctual to you. So don’t stress out—just read through the tenses below and enjoy the rush of new knowledge.

(Of course, I’m not saying you shouldn’t memorize all the tenses and how they’re used. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t feel any pressure to do so—it’s not a requirement for being a good writer.)

Present Tenses

Present Simple: Juan walks to the store.

Indicates that a person performs an action with some measure of regularity. Can also be used in dialog to describe an action in the moment (there she goes).

     Nanette jogs two miles every day.

Present Continuous: Juan is walking to the store.

Indicates that a person is currently in the middle of an unfinished action or that a person hasn’t finished a task yet but periodically returns to the task with an eye to completing it in the future.

     “Nanette? I think she is reading right now. Just a second, I’ll check.”

     “I’m studying Italian in school.”

Present Perfect: Juan has walked to the store.

Indicates that a person has just completed an action and is now either ready to perform or is currently performing a new action.

     “The suspect has approached the target and is initiating dialog.”

Present Perfect Continuous: Juan has been walking to the store.

Indicates that a person has just spent a period of time performing an action which may or may not be finished—often used when the action is now being interrupted. Also used to indicate that a specific action or portions of a task have been occurring regularly for some period of time.

     “No, Nanette has been sitting here with me all day. She couldn’t have stolen the jewels.”

     “Juan has been studying Italian lately.”

Past Tenses

Past Simple: Juan walked to the store.

Indicates that an action of indeterminate length or completeness occurred at some point in the past.

     “Nanette jogged twice today.”

Past Continuous: Juan was walking to the store.

Indicates that an action was in the process of occurring (and then was probably interrupted or something else occurred at the same time).

     Nanette was jogging when she got the call about Juan.

Past Perfect: Juan had walked to the store.

Indicates that an action was performed and completed before further actions took place.

     Juan suggested they go out for dinner, but Nanette had eaten already.

Past Perfect Continuous: Juan had been walking to the store.

Indicates that an action was in the process of being performed when it was interrupted and probably left incomplete.

     “The suspect had been working for hours before we apprehended him. We don’t know yet how much he got done.”

Future Tenses

Future Simple: Juan will walk to the store.

Indicates that an action of indeterminate duration or completeness will occur at some point in the future.

     “Nanette will pick up the ingredients we’re missing.”

Future Continuous: Juan will be walking to the store.

Indicates that an action will be in the process of occurring (and will then probably be interrupted or something else will occur at the same time).

     “I guarantee you Nanette will be reading the book when you get home.”

Future Perfect: Juan will have walked to the store.

Indicates that an action will have already been completed at a future point, when something else may then occur.

     “Do you think Nanette will have read the book by that point?”

Future Perfect Continuous: Juan will have been walking to the store.

Indicates that an action will have been going but will yet be incomplete at some point in the future. Statements with this tense will usually focus on the duration of the incomplete task.

     “Nanette will have been studying for ten straight hours by the time you get home. She will need a break.”

Relative (Future-in-the-past) Tenses

Here’s where things get fun. Relative or future-in-the-past tense generally refers to an action that will be in the future for a specific individual, but not necessarily for the speaker. This often means that a portion of the sentence (or the surrounding sentences) will be in past tense, but the action referred to in relative tense will be yet to happen at that point in time, although it may have already happened for the speaker.

It gets even more confusing because relative tense takes the same form as conditional sentences, were something will only happen if something else happens first.

… let’s just get to the examples.

Tenses are concerned with the time of  events in your story, so things can get a little . . . wibbly-wobbly.

Relative Simple: Juan would walk to the store.

Indicates that someone in the past expected to perform an action of indeterminate length or completeness at some point in their future.

     Nanette knew that she would buy the book.

Relative Continuous: Juan would be going to the store.

Indicates that someone in the past would be, in their future, in the process performing an action (which would then probably be interrupted).

     Nanette figured that she would be reading by then.

Relative Perfect: Juan would have gone to the store.

Indicates that someone in the past would perform an action that will have already been completed at a future point, when something else might then occur. Confused yet?

     Nanette realized that she couldn’t read that night, because by then Juan would have already retrieved his book from her place.

Relative Perfect Continuous: Juan would have been going to the store.

Indicates that someone in the past would perform an action that will have been going but will yet be incomplete at some point in their future.

     Nanette knew that on a normal day she would have been jogging for fifteen minutes by this point in the evening.

You made it! That post ended up a lot longer than I’d planned, but I hope it was informative. Next time, we’ll discuss a little more about why all these tenses are so important.

Mismatched Lists, Part Two

This is part two of our discussion on mistakes that crop up when authors write lists; you can find part one here. In part one, we discussed mismatched lists of nouns; today, we’ll discuss lists of actions. For instance:

     Before he could go out for the evening, Jeremy had some chores to get done, like walking the dog, cleaning out the car, and run to the store for snacks.

     Do you realize how much effort I put into this? I had to research all of the information myself, tracked down the original designers, and convinced them to help me put together a matching setup.

Can you see the problem with those lists? The items in these lists don’t all match. Let’s play a game of “one of these things is not like the others”:

     walking the dog

     cleaning out the car

     run to the store for snacks

The first two items in the list begin with “-ing” verbs (we’ve discussed those several times before), but the final item in the list does not (it begins with an imperative verb, if you’re curious). That’s a problem—when you list actions like this, the format of each action needs to match the others. Partly, we do this because symmetry looks and sounds better. But it’s often more than that.

The formatting of each action needs to match up with the portion of the sentence that introduces the list. You should be able to remove all of the actions in the list but one (any one) and still have the sentence make sense. Let’s look at the second example above in this manner:

     I had to research all of the information myself.

     I had to tracked down the original designers.

     I had to convinced them to help me put together a matching setup.

That didn’t work, did it? Those second two items on the list switched to past-tense verbs, even though the introductory text required an infinitive form of the verb (the basic, “unchanged” form of the verb). We can fix the sentence in one of two ways: we can fix the second two entries in the list or we can change the introductory text and first item in the list.

     I had to research all of the information myself, track down the original designers, and convince them to help me put together a matching setup.

     I researched all of the information myself, tracked down the original designers, and convinced them to help me put together a matching setup.

It’s that simple: items in a list should match one another in format, especially when it comes to the tense of the verb.

Mismatched Lists, Part One

Lists tend to show up a bit less often in stories than in other writing like essays or advertising, but they’re often done wrong in any medium. The basics of list-making are simple: mention a series of items, events, people, or whatever, separated by commas. You can use an Oxford comma after the penultimate item in the list or not, whatever you prefer (seriously, though, use the Oxford comma). Here’s some examples:

     Cary’s wife called to remind him that he needed to pick up eggs, milk, and rice from the store on his way home.

     Liesel arose early that morning, washed thoroughly, dressed in her Sunday finest, took a moment to apply some makeup, and then headed to her meeting.

There are, however, a couple common mistakes that crop up in lists that I read. We’ll discuss one today and the second next time.

Mismatched plurality

When we refer to a singular item in English, it is usually preceded by an indefinite or definite article—more specifically, either the word “A” or the word “The.”

     Could you hand me the butter?

     Can I have a bite?

When you make a list, you still need to include A or The, just as you would have if the item was not part of a list:

     Incorrect: Could you hand me the butter, knife, and roll?

     Correct: Could you hand me the butter, a knife, and a roll?

Now, if several items in a list would take the same article and they are all in a row, it is sometimes acceptable to put the article before the first word but leave it off with the rest:

     To get this open, we’re going to need a screwdriver, drill, accordion, and some peanut butter.

     The thieves took my keycard, jacket, and cell phone.

The problem usually arises in lists that contain any combination of plural items, singular items, or items that do not have a plural. Because plural and non-plural-izable words don’t require A or The, some writers feel like they don’t need to add in a or the for any singular items in the list:

     Incorrect: For the trip, Liesel packed clothing, toiletries, book, and snacks.

     Correct: For the trip, Liesel packed clothing, toiletries, a book, and snacks.

     Incorrect: These apartments feature granite countertops, hardwood floors, in-home washer and dryer, ceiling fan, and wifi access.

     Correct: This apartment features granite countertops, hardwood floors, an in-home washer and dryer set, a ceiling fan, and wifi access.

If you’re unsure about whether or not you can leave out the A or The from an item on your list, just go ahead and put the correct article in. You might be able to leave it out, but you’ll never be wrong if you include it.

Unintentionally Limited Superlatives

A superlative is an adjective or adverb which expresses that something is of the highest or a very high degree of a particular quality. Most superlatives use the suffix -est or are made through combination with the word most: examples include best, smartest, shortest, most clever, and most foolish.

Superlatives are usually limited by clarifying that the object being described is part of a narrower category. For example:

     Gabrielle was the smartest person Jun had met in his two years at the university.

     Jun is the most stubborn man at this school.

     This place has the best ice cream in town.

People almost always limit superlatives in this way to keep their expressions from being hyperbolic or ridiculous, or simply to be precise. However, I often see writers doing this unintentionally. For example:

     Prince Samuel paused, his breath catching in his throat. Across the ballroom stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in a sky-blue dress.

You see the problem, right? The author was trying to convey two things: first, that this woman was the most beautiful woman that Samuel had ever seen; and second, that she was wearing a blue dress. But by combining these two facts into one statement, the author inadvertently ended up sounding like a Flight of the Conchords song:

I see these sorts of unintentionally limited superlative statements with surprising frequency. The obvious problem with them is they tend to take a serious statement—one meant to convey a character’s awe or surprise—and turn it into something comical.

So how can you fix these sorts of sentences? Contrary to what many writers seem to think, a comma is not the best way to fix the problem:

     Prince Samuel paused, his breath catching in his throat. Across the ballroom stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, in a sky-blue dress.

Now it looks like you’re just saying the same thing, but with poor punctuation. The best way to fix unintentionally limited superlatives is to separate the extra description out into its own sentence:

    

     Prince Samuel paused, his breath catching in his throat. Across the ballroom stood the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her golden hair cascaded in curls over her shoulders, and she wore a sky-blue dress that sparkled with hidden gems.

Keep an eye out for this in your writing; if you want to hunt down any superlatives in your story, you can do searches for “most” and for “est ” (with a space at the end) to get it done quickly.

Punctuation Problems: Proper Parentheses, Part Two

On Punctuation With Parentheses

Parenthetical statements come in two varieties: small statements within a sentence, or longer statements of one or more sentences.

When inserting a parenthetical statement into a sentence, don’t move any of the sentence’s punctuation into the parentheses or adjust the grammar of the sentence to account for the text in the parentheses. You should be able to completely remove the parenthetical statement from the sentence and still have all grammar and punctuation flow correctly:

     Original: While I was speaking with Ludwig, I was also texting my wife.

     Wrong: While I was speaking with Ludwig (my step-father,) I was also texting my wife.

     Right: While I was speaking with Ludwig (my step-father), I was also texting my wife.

     Original: I don’t dislike Ludwig, but I don’t really enjoy his company, either.

     Wrong: I don’t dislike Ludwig (or his children,) but I don’t really enjoy their company, either.

     Right: I don’t dislike Ludwig (or his children), but I don’t really enjoy his company, either.

As a good rule of thumb, if the parenthetical is within a sentence, two things should be true: first, you should not begin the parenthetical with a capital unless it is a word that is normally capitalized (like a name); second, you should never have any punctuation at the end of the statement inside the parentheses. The only exception for this is if the statement is a question or an exclamation, in which case you can end it with a question mark or exclamation point, respectively. Note, however, that the question mark or exclamation point will not end the sentence.

     Wrong: Ludwig is really smart (He is a physicist.) and kind of socially awkward.

     Right: Ludwig is really smart (he is a physicist) and kind of socially awkward.

     Wrong: I don’t really get Ludwig (and probably never will;) he doesn’t really get me either.

     Right: I don’t really get Ludwig (and probably never will); he doesn’t really get me, either.

    

     Right: The other day, Ludwig wore lederhosen (seriously  . . . lederhosen?) to my baseball game.

     Original: But he bought me ice cream afterward, which was nice.

     Wrong: But he bought me ice cream afterward (my favorite!) Which was nice.

     Right: But he bought me ice cream afterward (my favorite!), which was nice.

If, on the other hand, your parenthetical statement is a sentence or more, then simply insert the entire thing into your paragraph as you would any other sentence, only with parentheses around it:

     My mom and Ludwig are planning a big vacation to Germany this summer, so that he can show us where he grew up. I’m not sure I want to go. (I’d have to skip out on band camp. I’m a section leader this year, so that seems like it would be irresponsible.) But my mom really wants me to come.

Note that, as always, the entire parenthetical statement could be removed from the paragraph without a problem:

     My mom and Ludwig are planning a big vacation to Germany this summer, so that he can show us where he grew up. I’m not sure I want to go. But my mom really wants me to come.

This is why you should make sure that none of the information outside the parentheses refers directly to any of the information inside the parentheses—otherwise, the parenthetical wouldn’t be able to be removed without affecting the flow of information.

     My mom and Ludwig are planning a big vacation to Germany this summer, so that he can show us where he grew up. I’m not sure I want to go. (I’d have to skip out on band camp. I’m a section leader this year, so that seems like it would be irresponsible.) But my mom really wants me to come, so I may need to get permission from my Band Director.

Without the parentheses, that paragraph wouldn’t make sense:

     My mom and Ludwig are planning a big vacation to Germany this summer, so that he can show us where he grew up. I’m not sure I want to go. But my mom really wants me to come, so I may need to get permission from my Band Director.

In such cases, you’re best off moving more information into the parentheses or getting rid of the parentheses altogether.

     My mom and Ludwig are planning a big vacation to Germany this summer, so that he can show us where he grew up. I’m not sure I want to go, but my mom really wants me to come. (I’d have to skip out on band camp. I’m a section leader this year, so that seems like it would be irresponsible. I may need to get permission from my Band Director.)

     My mom and Ludwig are planning a big vacation to Germany this summer, so that he can show us where he grew up. I’m not sure I want to go. (I’d have to skip out on band camp. I’m a section leader this year, so that seems like it would be irresponsible.) But my mom really wants me to come (so I may need to get permission from my Band Director).

     My mom and Ludwig are planning a big vacation to Germany this summer, so that he can show us where he grew up. I’m not sure I want to go, since I’d have to skip out on band camp. I’m a section leader this year—skipping seems like it would be irresponsible. But my mom really wants me to come, so I may need to get permission from my Band Director.

Subject-Verb Agreement, Part 3: Miscellaneous Problems

We’ve previously discussed subject-verb agreement and some of the ways writers get it wrong. Today, we’ll cover a few more common, miscellaneous errors, and then we’ll put this subject to bed for a while.

Indefinite Pronouns

An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that refers to a non-specific person, object, or place; examples include anyone, everyone, someone, no one, and nobody. Although many of these words seem to refer to multiple people (such as everyone and anyone), they are in fact singular nouns.

     No one has arrived yet.

     Somebody needs a hug.

     Everyone is here.

Photo from My English.

However, a difficulty commonly arises when indefinite pronouns and other pronouns are used together:

     Someone has left his keys behind.

The trouble is that someone has no implied gender, but English lacks an animate, non-gender-specific pronoun. (It is not gender specific, but it also is not generally animate—by which I mean that it doesn’t generally imply a sentient being.) This is a sensitive issue for many people who feel that masculine pronouns such as he or his should not be used by default for an unidentified or nonspecific person. There are many suggested workarounds for this problem. You can use the compound pronoun his or her (or her or his, if you prefer):

     Someone has left his or her keys behind.

If that feels awkward to you, then you’re not alone in that feeling. Another suggested workaround (the most common solution that people use in their day-to-day speech) is to use the pronoun their. While their is technically plural, it is an increasingly acceptable practice to use it as an indefinite singular pronoun in these sorts of situations:

     Someone has left their keys behind.

Note that the sentence uses has and not have—despite the use of the plural pronoun their, someone still remains singular.

The final (and usually best) solution is to simply rewrite the sentence to avoid the pronoun altogether:

    Someone has left some keys behind.

Each

Like the examples above, each is always singular. Writers are often confused because each has a tendency to be followed by a prepositional phrase ending in a plural word:

     Each of the cars comes equipped with GPS.

The phrase “of the cars” does not change the plurality of the subject—each is the subject, and it is always singular.

Neither and Either

Again, neither and either are both singular, despite the fact that they refer to two things:

     Neither of the lawnmowers is working.

     Either way works for me.

Portions

Words and expressions that indicate a portion of a greater group or whole are sometimes singular and sometimes plural. These include half of, a part of, a percentage of, a majority of, all, any, more, most, and some, as well as fractional expressions like one-third. The plurality of these phrases usually depends on the “whole” of which they refer to a portion—if the whole is a plural word, then the portion will also be plural, but if the whole is a singular word, then the portion will also be singular. For example:

     Most of the workers (plural) are upset.

     Most of the water (singular) is tainted.

     One-third of the vehicles were faulty.

     Two-thirds of the estate was lost.

Note, however, that the phrase “more than one” is singular:

     More than one pilot has tried that stunt.

Controlling Your Dialog Tags

A while ago, we discussed the two prominent schools of thought regarding dialog tags; today we'll go over the kinds of dialog tags you should always avoid. These fall into three classes: grandiloquent, repetitive, and non-dialog.

Grandiloquent

Grandiloquent means "overly high-minded, pompous, or pretentious, especially in language," and it is a condition that afflicts many new authors. My preferred term for this behavior is highfalutin. 

The amount of grandiloquence you employ should vary depending on what you're writing. If you're working on a very flowery, "literary" type of story, then you'll want to be a little more eloquent, as florid prose is a hallmark of that genre. In any other genre, however, you'll generally want to ensure that your prose calls as little attention to itself as possible—you want your readers to almost forget that they're reading and simply absorb the story, which they can't do if they have to stop and think over highfalutin language.

Here are some grandiloquent dialog tags that I often see crop up in novice writing:

"Dialog," he opined. < Just use said.

"Dialog," she queried. < asked, unless maybe the character is a computer.

"Dialog," I ruminated. < reflected, remembered, or recalled could all work here. 

"Dialog," it pontificated. < said, lectured.

"Dialog," John soliloquized. < said or reflected, depending on the context.

The line between being precise with your word choice and being too highfalutin is very fine—generally, I recommend leaning toward simpler language if you're ever in doubt.

Repetitive

Novice writers have a tendency to repeat themselves, and one way that they do this is often in dialog tags. Take a look at the following example:

"Welcome to the Nodsdown Fair!" the young woman greeted.

Here, the tag greeted is redundant—the dialog itself already made it very clear that the woman is greeting someone. The tag is only there to let us know who is speaking, so said would be more efficient here. Some other frequently-repetitive tags are cursed, pontificated, lectured, rambled, hinted, joked, agreed, elaborated, and explained.

Now, you might have noticed that some of those words can be found on my list of possible tags from the last post. Sometimes these words aren't redundant, and sometimes they are. It's an even finer line to walk than the grandiloquent line. Just be on the lookout for any redundant tags in your writing, and when in doubt—err on the side of simple.

Non-Dialog

The final type of dialog tag to avoid is tags that don't actually describe the manner in which the dialog was spoken. Take this example:

"I think I can do that," John smiled. "Give me the stick."

Smiled doesn't actually describe the dialog—you can't smile words. This kind of construction usually arises from writers who are trying to cut out extra words and go a little too far. Cutting out excess words is good, as long as the remaining words still accurately state what they're intended to. Our example can be rewritten in several ways:

With dialog tags:
"I think I can do that," John said, smiling. "Give me the stick."
"I think I can do that," John said with a smile. "Give me the stick."

Without dialog tags:
"I think I can do that." John smiled. "Give me the stick."
John smiled. "I think I can do that. Give me the stick."

Some other words that I often see used as tags which don't actually describe the dialog are: nodded, shrugged, blushed, snorted, and ground (as in "he said while grinding his teeth").

(I'll also mention laughed, coughed, scoffed, chuckled, gasped, sobbed, grunted, sighed, and cried. These can be acceptable, as they describe the sounds coming out of a character's mouth simultaneous to the dialog. No, we don't actually laugh words, but we can speak while laughing. But try to use these sparingly.)


I also want to place special emphasis on my personal, most-hated non-dialog dialog tags:

"Dan here couldn't hit a baseball if it was the size of a pumpkin!" Mike jabbed.
"Maybe I should practice with your head," Dan returned.

I hate "jabbed" and "returned." Don't use them, not ever. They fall into both the repetitive and the non-dialog categories; what's worse, they always tend to be attached to back-and-forth teasing that isn't nearly as clever as the author wants to believe it is. Please do not use these words as dialog tags.

P.S.

Many authors use the word sang to mean "shouted jubilantly." While this usage is not uncommon, it can be a little confusing; after all, it is possible to literally sing words. I recommend avoiding it.

Crowed can be used to mean the same thing, and I don't like it. There's nothing technically wrong with it; that's mostly just me.

Punctuating Dialog: Here's How It's Done

I’ve read quite a few manuscripts of late that had trouble punctuating their dialog correctly, so let’s go over that very quickly.

1. You should always have some sort of punctuation immediately before your closing quotation mark.

It can be a comma, a period, a semi-colon, question mark, exclamation point, em-dash, or ellipses; it can be almost any form of punctuation, but there must be punctuation of some sort. What you don’t want to do is this:

     “I haven’t seen Aziz since class yesterday” Nora said.

There should be some sort of punctuation between yesterday and the closing quotation mark (a comma, in this case), and in all similar scenarios. There is almost no situation in which you’d be justified leaving out that closing punctuation.

2. If the dialog is followed by a dialog tag, then you cannot close the dialog with a period.

The dialog tag is that short little bit that identifies who is speaking: some variation of she said, he asked, I shouted, etc. If there is a dialog tag after your dialog, you cannot end the dialog with a period:

     INCORRECT: “I haven’t seen Aziz since class yesterday.” Nora said.

     CORRECT: “I haven’t seen Aziz since class yesterday,” Nora said.

Note that this rule only applies to periods. Other ending punctuation such as question marks and exclamation points should not be affected by the dialog tag:

     “I think Aziz has been kidnapped!” she shouted.

     “What makes you think that?” he replied.

Note also that exclamation points and question marks in dialog do not end the sentence, so the dialog tag is not capitalized—as discussed in this post.

3. If dialog is interrupted, end it with an em dash. If it trails off, use ellipses.

     “We don’t have any reason to think—” he began.

     “I just know something is wrong!” she interrupted. “He could be hurt, or . . .”

Ellipses in dialog is a subject more thoroughly covered in this post.

4. If the dialog tag interrupts a sentence, then it should end with a comma. If it comes at the end of a sentence of dialog, it should end with a period, even if it is followed by more dialog.

     “Nora,” Aziz whispered, “please come after me.”

     “I’m calling the police,” Nora said. “I don’t care what you say.”

You’ll find more on this topic in this post.

If you're wondering, Aziz was totally kidnapped, but Nora saved him in time.

Repetitive Sentence Structures

Many writers tend to prefer certain types of sentences over others. It’s not usually a conscious preference. It’s simply a particular format or type of sentence that comes naturally to a writer, one that they tend to use frequently because it is comfortable and instinctive. But it is possible for repeated use of similar sentence formats to make prose dull and repetitive. 

This is similar to the problem covered in this post, only now we're talking sentence structure instead of length. Here’s an example:

     Smiling, Raul opened the door to the house. With a gasp, Yasmin stepped inside, staring at the transformed entryway. Rose petals covered the floor and brilliant glass lanterns hung in rows from the ceiling. Taking her hand, Raul led the way along the rose-petal path.

There are four sentences in this example, and three of them follow a similar format: short opening phrase, comma, and the rest of the sentence. Try reading that out loud; it gets tiring, doesn’t it?

Which four-course meal looks more appetizing?
Sentence structure is like food; variety is usually preferable to repetition.

There is no hard and fast rule as to how much is too much when it comes to repeating sentence formats. Sometimes a paragraph can function just fine with several sentences of a similar style; other times, even just two similar sentences in a row will be too much. But it is safe to say that the more complicated the format of a particular sentence, the longer you should wait before using a similar format again.

The tricky thing about this problem is that it will be different for every writer. The sentence formats that come most naturally to me won’t be the same as the ones that come naturally to you. This makes it a bit harder to spot, since I cannot give you specific structures to look out for.

As is often the case with hard-to-spot problems, your best bet for this one is to gather together some discerning readers and ask them to keep an eye out for this problem. Reading your prose out loud will also make this problem easier to catch.

Once you’ve identified a repetitive passage, it will usually be pretty easy to fix. Here’s an edited version of our example above:

     Smiling, Raul opened the door to the house. Yasmin stepped inside with a gasp, staring at the transformed entryway. Rose petals covered the floor and brilliant glass lanterns hung in rows from the ceiling. Taking her hand, Raul led the way along the rose-petal path.

Simple, right? In this case, we only needed to alter one sentence to make the passage read more smoothly. Remember: repeated sentence structures grow bland and tiresome—try to get in the habit of varying things up regularly.

P.S.

Okay, I was wrong—I remembered one specific type of sentence structure that tends to get repeated frequently which you should look for. 

Be careful to avoid beginning a series of sentences with the same pronoun (or its possessive form). For example:

     Raul dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach. He didn’t know what was causing it, but he suddenly felt like he was going to vomit out entire organs. He crawled slowly into the bathroom. His muscles spasmed with the pain, slowing him. He groaned with the effort of moving. Finally, he reached the toilet. He lifted the lid with shaking hands and positioned his head over the bowl, but nothing came out.

See the problem? That paragraph had seven sentences; four began with the word “he” and one began with an introductory phrase followed by “he” as the subject. Plus, the second sentence was a compound sentence with “he” as the subject of the second portion and the subject of the embedded clause at the end. That’s seven phrases beginning with “he” across seven sentences. Keep an eye out for any series of sentences that all begin with the same pronoun.

Minding Your "ings": Sentence Fragments

I recently went over sentence fragments—what they are and why they are a problem. As I was reading a manuscript this weekend, however, I suddenly realize that I neglected to mention the type of sentence fragment that is probably the most common: the “-ing”-verb sentence fragment.

Now, the -ing verb (or present participle) is a subject that I’ve covered a few times before. It’s a form of verb that is usually used to indicate that one action is being performed simultaneously to another action. For example:

     Gasping for breath, Amy slowed to a stop.

The above sentence indicates that two actions are occurring at the same time—Amy was gasping while she slowed to a stop.

Note that only one of the verbs in that sentence (gasping) is an -ing verb. The second verb (slowed) is a simple past-tense verb paired with the subject of the sentence, Amy. That’s because an -ing verb cannot serve as the primary verb of a sentence.

Remember: the most common use of the -ing verb is to indicate simultaneous actions—it can’t be used without another verb in the sentence that is conjugated to pair up with a subject, as in our example above. When writers attempt to use an -ing verb as the primary verb of the sentence, they end up with sentence fragments like this:

     Driving to the store.

This example has no subject! Who is driving to the store?

Pictured: The scene created by the sentence fragment "Driving to the store."

     His head pounding.

This example has a noun that could function as a subject, if it weren’t paired with an -ing verb.

     Gasping for breath, her lungs burning and her legs aching.

Again, this example has nouns (lungs and legs), but it has no verbs that aren’t in -ing format, so it is still a sentence fragment.

Now, you might look through your manuscript and find a sentence like this:

     Amy was running in the park.

That sentence doesn’t follow the same format as our good example above, does it? But it’s an -ing verb, and it’s grammatically sound. But note that there is a second verb in that sentence, one that is conjugated to work properly with the subject: was. That’s why this sentence works where the others didn’t.

(You might also note that there is no simultaneous action in that sentence. Take a moment, though, to think about how that sentence would be used. It would probably be part of an introduction to a scene, don’t you think? “Amy was running in the park. A dog approached her with a human hand in its mouth.” The simultaneous action is still there—it will just be in a different sentence.)

As I said before, this is probably the most common type of sentence fragment that I run across in manuscripts. So keep an eye on any sentences you have that feature an -ing verb, and make sure that they also have a proper subject and verb. Even then, though, there’s a lot of ways that -ing verbs can go wrong. To make sure everything is in order, go back through the rest of the “Minding Your ‘-ings’” series to make sure that your -ings are all square: here’s the links to Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.

Commas and Introductory Phrases

     Because he hated it when people came to his door Hermit Jones moved to an isolated cave in the mountains.

There is something missing from that sentence, and that something is a comma. It belongs between the introductory phrase and the rest of the sentence:

     Because he hated it when people came to his door, Hermit Jones moved to an isolated cave in the mountains.

How can you tell when a phrase is an “introductory phrase” rather than a normal beginning to a sentence? Well, first you need to know your basic sentence structure:

     SUBJECT      VERB     (sometimes optional) DIRECT OBJECT

        Callie           loves             those soft orange candy peanuts.

Most sentences begin with the subject of the sentence (and any adjectives used to describe them). If there is a complete phrase before the subject of the sentence, it is usually an introductory phrase that will need to be set apart by a comma. Introductory phrases usually describe the location, time, conditions, or reasons for the action taken by the sentence’s subject. So in our example above, Hermit Jones is the subject and moved is the verb. Everything before Hermit Jones is an introductory phrase describing his reason for moving, so it requires a comma to set it apart from the rest of the sentence.

Here’s some other examples:

      Before I get into the story, I should warn you that it is rather disturbing.

     Afraid of exposing herself to mockery, Dorothy decided not to try out for the cheerleading squad.

     To be perfectly honest, I don’t really understand the appeal of snowboarding.

     Lately, Georgina has seemed rather distressed and distant.

Now most of these examples have introductory phrases of several words, but take note of that last one. An introductory phrase can be as short as a single word. With such short introductory phrases, it isn’t uncommon to forgo a comma—I did it with “now” at the beginning of this paragraph, for example.

     Lately Georgina has seemed rather distressed and distant.

If you’re not sure whether or not it’s acceptable to leave out the comma between your short introductory phrase and the rest of the sentence, err on the side of caution and put the comma in.

The question of whether or not to include the introductory-phrase-comma is like the question of whether or not to bring food to a party: you might be okay if you don't, but you'll always be okay if you do.