Yay!

Let's start with a Yay! I just discovered my latest novel, Channeling Morpheus for Scary Mary, is available in more countries than I thought. Find it at:
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.ca
Amazon.de
Amazon.fr

And, of course, Amazon.com

Don't Slip Into A Comma

I want to talk about grammar and style.

There's something called an absolute phrase I want to warn you about, so that it doesn't sneak up on you. I think people use it to vary their sentences and to sound writerly. It goes against my philosophy of writing plainly and trying to write the way people actually speak. If your writing philosophy isn't like mine, then obviously your mileage may vary.

From the Garden of Phrases
Usually (but not always, as we shall see), an absolute phrase (also called a nominative absolute) is a group of words consisting of a noun or pronoun and a participle as well as any related modifiers. Absolute phrases do not directly connect to or modify any specific word in the rest of the sentence; instead, they modify the entire sentence, adding information. They are always treated as parenthetical elements and are set off from the rest of the sentence with a comma or a pair of commas (sometimes by a dash or pair of dashes). Notice that absolute phrases contain a subject (which is often modified by a participle), but not a true finite verb.

Wrong  - Slim as a teenager, Daphne had pale blue eyes that sparkled when she laughed.

Also wrong — Slim as a teenager, Daphne’s clothes hung from her unless she had them altered to fit her tiny waist.

Right - Slim as a teenager, Daphne needed to have her clothing altered to fit her tiny waist.

My preference — Daphne was as slim as a teenager, so willowy she needed to have her clothing altered to fit her tiny waist.

What about was? Is that passive? NO, it’s a form of the word “to be.” (The clothes were altered to fit Daphne’s slim waist.)

Then what's a passive sentence? The classic example is, "Mistakes were made," with no clear subject.

Your Assignment

Read a chunk of your prose out loud and be honest with yourself — is that the way you speak, really, or are you trying to sound writerly? Re-write it the way you'd actually say it, even if you don't end up using the results. This is like practicing guitar chords. It can't hurt to know alternative fingerings.

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