Stretchy Librarian

Comment by lynne

March 20, 2008 @ 2:57 pm

I do tend to use a lot of -ing verbs, so it’s something I’ve learned to watch for, and I check for those when I revise, so in my manuscript now there are very few -ing words. (It looks like I’ve been thorough in my revisions– I did a search for -ing, and the first ones to come up were in chapter 13!) Here is one example where I’ve kept the -ing: “He pulled off small pieces of dough and started rolling them into flat circles.” I don’t want to say “…and rolled them…” because this is going on while two people are talking, so it’s not a completed task. I could find a way to reword it, but it’s one of the few -ing verbs that I have in the story so it doesn’t bother me. In my more recent chapters that haven’t been revised as much, I did find a few that should be changed: the sentence, “After a few days, the elephant was the one leading me to the spring each evening” can be revised to say, “…who lead me to the spring…” or “…lead the way…”.

Later in that same chapter I have the phrase “…stopping to rest before riding again into the wild”, and I’ll change that to, “We stopped to rest before we rode away…” or even start with “We rested…”

In a National Geographic article I read recently, I found some sentences I loved so much, I highlighted them. The author gave such rich description in relatively few words, without using -ing words, and in relating to the last lesson, no adverbs and hardly any adjectives:
“Her silver ornaments scintillated with the flames, and when she moved, she rattled. She wore a veil over what looked like a pixie’s hat. Had she pulled out a wand and offered me three wishes, I could not have found her more fantastic.”

I wish I wrote that.

I found another passage I like just as much, and noticed that the author did use a couple of -ing verbs. She wrote this part as a journal entry, in the present tense, and the verbs didn’t distract me at all when I read the sentences:
“I hear my name; the women are talking about me, but they speak in Gujarati. …They think my name is ridiculous, so they call me Ratti Ben (Sister of Blood). My eyelids are growing heavy, and in that forest between sleep and wakefulness I understand, with immeasurable relief, all their words. I try to fix them in my brain for later, but my everyday mind closes over that fertile ground like parking lot concrete.”

I think that’s like the Raymond Chandler example in the book, in that the author creates that “here and now” feeling by using a couple of -ing words. The author uses such strong verbs and similes that the occasional use of -ing verbs doesn’t take anything away from the writing.

Comment by lynne

March 20, 2008 @ 3:37 pm

Argh! I should have proofread my last post better; let’s make that “Led the way,” past tense, instead of “Lead the way.”