Transcript Common sentence faults

Words and Sentences
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What is a word?
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What is a sentence?
Sentences
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A simple sentence consist of a subject, a verb and
(usually) an object.
A verb is a process or doing word
A subject is the person or thing doing the action or
process.
An object is the thing being acted on.
He (subject) hated (verb) her (object).
I (subject) do (verb).
Sentences
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Complex sentences contain a control unit and
additional support units.
A control unit: the central idea of the sentence.
Contains subject + verb (+ possibly object)
Support unit: tells us more about the control unit.
Does not make sense on its own.
He (subject) hated (verb) her (object), which made her
even more cruel to him (support unit).
Sentences
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Compound sentences contain two or more control
units, linked by a conjunction (joining word) or
semi-colon (;).
He (subject) hated (verb) her (object) but
(conjunction) she (subject) did not (verb, adverb) care.
He (subject) hated (verb) her (object); he (subject)
made (verb) it his mission to make her life miserable.
Sentences
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Use a variety of simple, complex and compound
sentences to make your writing engaging.
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Put the subject as close as possible to the front of
the sentence: your writing will sound dynamic and
active.
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You can analyse your sentences using this tool:
https://foxtype.com/sentence-tree
Common sentence faults
Comma splice: Running two sentences into each other by
putting a comma instead of a full stop.
She (subject) walked (verb) quickly (adverb), she (subject)
knew (verb) he could hear her anyway (object).
To fix:
• Add a full stop
She walked quickly. She knew he could hear her anyway.
• Add a conjunction
She walked quickly, though she knew he could hear her
anyway.
• Add a semi-colon.
She walked quickly; she knew he could hear her anyway.
Common sentence faults
Sentence fragment: missing a subject or a verb.
Doris, who was steady and calm. (Doris is not doing
anything).
Walking and laughing. (Who is walking? No subject).
How to fix:
• Check your sentences, identifying subjects and
verbs.
• Consider the effect.
• Sometimes sentences fragments are ok.
Sometimes it’s ok to break the rules
‘How he went to prison for shooting the Russian guy.
Took his suitcase and sold his clothes, his shoes, all of
it way too big for him. Came here during the time of
the boat lift from Mariel, twenty-seven years ago,
man, when Fidel opened the prison and sent all the
bad dudes to La Yuma—what he called the United
States—for vacation.
How he got into different hustles. Didn’t care for
armed robbery. Liked boosting cars at night off a
dealer’s lot. He danced go-go in gay bars as the cat
prince, wore a leopard-print jock strap, cat whiskers
painted on his face, but scored way bigger tips at
Ladies Night in clubs, the ladies stuffing his jocks with
bills.’
--Elmore Leonard, Road Dogs
‘How he went to prison for shooting the Russian guy
(sentence fragment). Took his suitcase and sold his
clothes, his shoes, all of it way too big for him
(sentence fragment, no subject). Came here during the
time of the boat lift from Mariel, twenty-seven years
ago, man, when Fidel opened the prison and sent all
the bad dudes to La Yuma—what he called the United
States—for vacation (sentence fragment, no subject).
How he got into different hustles (sentence
fragment). Didn’t care for armed robbery (sentence
fragment, no subject). Liked boosting cars at night off
a dealer’s lot (sentence fragment, no subject). He
danced go-go in gay bars as the cat prince, wore a
leopard-print jock strap, cat whiskers painted on his
face, but scored way bigger tips at Ladies Night in
clubs, the ladies stuffing his jocks with bills.’
--Elmore Leonard, Road Dogs
Common sentence faults
Misplaced support units: where the support unit isn’t close
to the person or thing it modifies, or the person or thing is
missing from the sentence.
Charles, holey with caterpillar bites, ate the cabbage.
(misplaced support unit).
Walking the dog, she pooped on the grass. (absent actor).
How to fix:
• Ensure support units are as close as possible to the
person/thing they modify.
Charles ate the cabbage holey with caterpillar bites.
• Ensure support units relate to the actor in the
sentence.
While Beth was out walking her, the dog pooped on the
grass.
Common sentence faults
Tense changes: where you begin in the present and
move to the past, or vice versa.
She’d left once already and he was (past) still wary of
her. He eats (present) with one eye on her.
How to fix:
• Read your work focusing only on verbs and their
tense. Be consistent: either all past or all present.
• Check tense in flashbacks.
Common sentence faults
Overly wordy sentences
The sun oozed over the horizon, shoved aside darkness,
crept along the greensward, and, with sickly fingers, pushed
through the castle window, revealing the pillaged princess,
hand at throat, crown asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at
the sated, sodden amphibian lying beside her, disbelieving
the magnitude of the frog's deception, screaming madly,
"You lied!”
Common sentence faults
Accidently funny sentences
Winners of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for Worst Opening
Line:
‘She strutted into my office wearing a dress that clung to her like
Saran Wrap to a sloppily butchered pork knuckle, bone and
sinew jutting and lurching asymmetrically beneath its folds, the
tightness exaggerating the granularity of the suet and causing
what little palatable meat there was to sweat, its transparency
the thief of imagination.’ — Chris Wieloch, Brookfield, WI
‘I told you to wear sensible shoes, but no, your vanity would not
allow it!” he yelled at me as if that had something to do with the
airplane crashing into the jungle and all the bodies draped in the
trees, but it was just the sort of nonsense I was used to from
him, making me wish one or the other of us was hanging dead
above us, instead of Rodney.’ — Thor F. Carden, Madison, TN