Verbals (Participle Phrases)

Pattern # 12 in Ann Longknife and K.D. Sullivan's Art of Styling Sentences

Pages: 71-75.

I like verbals, aka participle phrases prior to or after an SV; they allow for a variety and make the sentences more active.

In general, there are the -ing phrases, the -ed phrases, and the -to verb phrases that can begin or end the SV pattern.

Participle phrase, SV.

SV, participle phrase.

These patterns allow the writer to combine elements in a spicier, peppier way, rather than having the rigamorole and steady bass beat of SV. SV. SV. SV.

Remember one of the Harry Potter Secrets: Strong writing varies up between hip hop and classical. Imagine Darude, perhaps: he enjoys sampling some ethereal tones with a heavy bassline.

Instead of "I was afraid of driving recklessly. So, I decided to really slow down and pay attention to the speed limit," you can smooth the sentence out. The use of "So" is just too jarring, since "so" traditionally belongs as a coordinating conjunction along with the other members of FANBOYS (for / and / nor / but / or / yet / so):

SV, and SV.

Here's how you can use a verbal to smooth it out: "In order to avoid driving recklessly, I slowed down, beginning to pay more atention to the speed limit." You could also use the -ing construction: "Driving recklessly, I recognized the need to slow down; as such, I began to be more mindful of the speed limit."

Be careful with this pattern. Most of all, you don't want to have what is known as the dreaded "dangling modifier," where the main subject of your sentence doesn't mesh up with the initial participle phrase.

Here's an example:

Playing Nintendo Wii's "No More Heroes" was a disaster, the controller's nunchuku not being adequately plugged in.

This sentence above "dangles," because the controller's nunchuku has NO WAY to play the Nintendo Wii: the main subject of the sentence is not clarified.

Here's the revision: Playing Nintendo Wii's "No More Heroes" proved to be disastrous; after all, I had forgotten to plug the nunchaku into the main Wii-mote. Consequently, I could not even begin the initial hack-and-slash tutorial.

The use of the "I" in "I had forgotten" makes the sentence clearer, because it makes certain who the exact subject was—the very person playing the game in the first place.

Supplemental links to follow, HERE