{"id":214,"date":"2013-03-26T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-26T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/blog\/2013\/03\/26\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_26\/"},"modified":"2015-11-25T12:22:18","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T19:22:18","slug":"tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/tactical-tuesday-advice-for-self-editing_26\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical Tuesday: Advice for Self-Editing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nLately,
\na case of style versus aggravation has cropped up in a few pieces of work I
\nhave viewed: the “verbless” sentence.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nI am undecided as to whether authors attempting this form of style<\/i> are doing so because they are trying to eliminate passive
\nverbs (which are not all bad, as some authors may believe) or if they are
\nattempting to make the dialogue and the thoughts of a character more realistic.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nGranted,
\nusing a dash of this technique provides an interesting variation, but to fold
\nin an entire cupful of “verbless” sentences is a distraction.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAn
\nexample of this type of structure would be utilized in a paragraph such as:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nMy word! No couth,
\nthat one. None at all. Rather a viper in starlet\u2019s clothing. A heartless
\nscoundrel. A gold digger.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn all truthfulness, an editor would probably
\nleave this paragraph alone because it definitely works to tell the reader exactly
\nwhat the character thinks of this heartless viper of a starlet. However, if the
\nauthor used this type of sentence structure throughout the manuscript, what
\nwould then make this paragraph stand out?<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn a sequence such as the one following, there isn\u2019t
\nanything particularly interesting going on that needs emphasis or
\nstyle, and the lack of verbs make the thoughts tiresome:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThe store? Why? Tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow.
\nNot today.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nWhen an author decides to use a style technique such as verbless
\nsentences, her edits should include a careful perusal of the manuscript to
\ndetermine if the usages have turned from \u201cstyle\u201d to \u201caggravation for the
\nreader.\u201d<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHappy editing.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately, a case of style versus aggravation has cropped up in a few pieces of work I have viewed: the “verbless” sentence. I am undecided as to whether authors attempting this form of style are doing so because they are trying to eliminate passive verbs (which are not all bad, as some authors may believe) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[504],"tags":[177,174,67,18,161,70,23],"class_list":["post-214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editing-writing-advice","tag-active-writing","tag-creativity","tag-editing","tag-editing-tips","tag-fiction-writing","tag-self-editing","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pelicanbookgroup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}