This week we turn our attention to the practical use of grammar and how understanding it can help improve our writing.
Sentence Types
Declarative – Makes a statement about something.
Interrogatory – Asks a question.
Imperative – Provides an instruction.
Exclamatory – Makes an exclamation.
The following exchange contains each of these. But in any dialog the majority of your sentences will be declarative.
- SERVANT: Ma’am?
- MADAME NORISS: (STARTLED) Oh! You quite frightened me, Sally.
- SERVANT: Sorry, Ma’am. I need to be in town in an hour. Is there anything you need?
- MADAME NORISS: Bring me a cup of tea.
- SERVANT: Yes, Ma’am
Sentences
As has already been stated in an earlier article, sentences are made up of a subject and a predicate and express a complete idea. Phrases and clauses are not sentences.
Using Phrases and Clauses
“Down the street” is a phrase. There is no subject acting, nor is there a verb that turns it into a complete predicate.
“while climbing on the roof” is a clause. It depends on something prior in order to complete the idea it is trying to express.
Likewise, “he sat down for a moment before” is a clause. There is a subject “he” and a complete predicate with a verb “sat down for a moment”, but the idea is left incomplete (as indicated by the connecting word “before”.
Does this mean we should only write in complete sentences? No. We can make use of phrases and stand-alone clauses in our writing, but we need to do so carefully.
If a character overhears a conversation, it is quite legitimate to present a phrase.
- SOUND: JIM ENTERS THE KITCHEN
- JENNY: (HURRIEDLY) …need to talk to you later. Bye.
- SOUND: PHONE HANGS UP
- JIM: Who was that?
- JENNY: (EMBARRASSED) Oh, nobody.
In the dialog above, the phrase creates mystery BECAUSE it is not a complete sentence.
A broken radio transmission can do something similar…
- SOUND: INTERMITTENT BURSTS OF STATIC AT THE GAPS IN THE SPEECH THAT FOLLOWS
- RADIO OPERATOR: Mayday. Mayday. The expedition is… (STATIC). We’ve lost all our…(STATIC) … are dead and only (STATIC) remain alive. (STATIC) …are being hunted. (STATIC) …help urgently. Mayday.
Generally, unless we deliberately wish to create confusion, clauses and phrases are used in a way that implies a complete sentence.
- BOB: Where’d Jenny go?
- DON: Down the street.
Don’s answer is a prepositional phrase, but the complete sentence “Jenny went down the street” is implied.
At other times the sentence has been interrupted (but the full sentence and idea remains intact).
- DON: We’ve still got a little bit of time before…
- SOUND: GUNSHOT AND BREAKING WINDOW.
- BOB: Get down. Damn, that was close. What were you saying? Time before…?
- DON: (IRONIC LAUGH) Heh…before the shooting starts.
Despite the interruption (of the bullet) the full sentence “we’ve still got a little time before the shooting starts” remains.
There are also times where we will use a phrase or clause to imply that the character has completed a thought (a complete sentence), even though we do not find out what the sentence is.
- BOB: If Salvadore killed Ruby then that means he…
- DON: Bob? You just kind of trailed off there, you know?
- BOB: Yeah, but I think I just blew this case wide open. C’mon, let’s get down to Police Plaza.
Implied sentences can be of any length.
- GRANT: It’s stuffy. I’m going to open a window.
- JACKIE: No!
Jackie’s one word, “No!” implies the much lengthier “You must not open the window”.
Here, presented by Elmer, is a two-word sentence.
- GEORGE: What was that noise?
- ELMER: Sally coughed.
Elmer’s sentence implies nothing – it doesn’t need to – and meets all the requirements of a sentence. The subject is Sally, the predicate is coughed, and it contains a complete idea.
Sometimes. if our dialog feels confused or confusing, it’s because our phrases do not effectively imply or present complete sentences. It can be worth going over our writing and, in our heads if not on paper, translating our phrases into full sentences just to be sure our meaning is clear.
Controlling Sentence Length
By controlling sentence length, we control pace and, to an extent, emotion in our writing. It is good advice to keep dialog short and avoid employing any unnecessary words. But, if dialog is cut too much, it can lose its meaning and power. The decision regarding when a word is “unnecessary” is a judgment we make based on the context of our text and our intention in writing it.
Gary Provost wrote the following paragraph to illustrate this point…
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.
Realism in dialog
There is a tension that every writer of dialog feels. Dialog needs to sound as if it were being spoken by real people without accurately reproducing the way real people speak.
The apparent contradiction here is explained by listening to any real-world conversation. In real life people repeat themselves incessantly, ramble, lose their train of thought, find it again, mis-speak, correct themselves, forget what they were trying to say, etc. Real-world conversation is inefficient. If we reproduce it for audio drama, our listeners will quickly become bored and switch their attention elsewhere. Speech designed for entertainment needs to authentically express character but in a form crafted to maintain attention without drawing attention to itself.
A rambling sentence…
JIM: You know, he… well the curb. He was hit by a car as he stepped off it. Paying no attention to the traffic, just dreaming. And it hit him… while he wasn’t paying attention.
It seems realistic – the stumbling words, the repetition, etc. We all know people who talk like this in real-life. But it is horribly inefficient.
The following is an equally inefficient sentence…
- JIM: He was struck by a car as he stepped off the curb, heedless of the traffic.
This sentence lacks the sense of character of the first and trails off with an afterthought that weakens it.
This sentence is more efficient and impactful…
- JIM: He stepped off the curb and was hit by a car.
In the mouth of a hesitant character it might sound something like this…
- JIM: He… well, he stepped off the curb. (BEAT) And he was hit.
The shorter, punchier sentence is always to be preferred over longer rambling sentences (even where the characterisation calls for a little bit of ramble).
The two most important parts of a sentence of dialog are the beginning and the end. In a sense, we do well to think about sentences in terms of setup and payoff. When we emphasise the beginning of the sentence we emphasise the setup and elaborate upon it as payoff.
- JIM: George is acting crazy; he’s been muttering about spies all morning and now he’s talking to the water cooler!
In the above sentence we know what or to whom the sentence refers; George. Everything else is elaboration.
When we emphasise the end of a sentence we raise a question in the setup and pay it off by answering it at the end (creating a kind of micro-suspense).
- JIM: He’s been muttering about spies all morning and now he’s talking to the water cooler. This insane behaviour just isn’t like George.
At times it pays to place the emphasis in the middle of the sentence, creating suspense and then providing an elaboration.
- JIM: He’s acting crazy, so unlike George; talking to the water cooler and muttering about spies.
Interestingly, the majority of sentences in published plays and screenplays (50%) emphasize the end of the sentence. While the remaining 50% are made up of sentences that place the emphasis at the beginning or middle of the sentence. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. In dialog, the end of the sentence provides the impetus for the reaction provided by the next character’s line.
The Importance of the last word
Dialog (like acting) is more often about reaction than not. Each spoken line is an action that results in a reaction from another participant in the conversation. As such it is important NOT to bury the point that will illicit the next line of dialog either at the beginning or somewhere in the middle of a sentence. In dialog (as in life) speakers react to the last word spoken.
- JENNY: You think she killed all of them and then turned the gun on herself?
- KATHY: No. I think we’re supposed to think that’s what she did. This was done by someone else.
- JENNY: But who would set up a scene like this? In such a public space? Surely, they wouldn’t have time.
- KATHY: Our perpetrator thrives on pressure. The limited time would have given the situation extra excitement.
- JENNY: If that’s the case, then the killer enjoys this kind of thing… and it’s probably not the first time.
- KATHY: Yep. We’re dealing with a serial killer.
Grammar and Weak Sentences
Attention grabbing sentences are strong. Beware of sentences that end weakly. It’s easy to spot a weak sentence if it comes with a little addition after the main point has been made.
- New South Wales is better than Victoria in my opinion.
- In most states, a driver’s license is not granted to a person under the age of eighteen unless there are special circumstances, in which case a license may be granted.
Both of these sentences continue adding words after the point has been made. Sentences are always stronger when they finish more emphatically.
- In my opinion New South Wales is better than Victoria.
- In most states, people under eighteen can’t get a driver’s license.
Another way that sentences are made weak is through use of the passive rather than active voice. The passive voice places the emphasis on the thing being acted upon rather than the thing that is acting.
- The cricket ball was hit by the batsman.
- The picnic was enjoyed by the whole family.
It is much stronger and attention grabbing to say…
- The batsman hit the cricket ball.
- The whole family enjoyed the picnic.
Passive voice can be useful if we want to make a character sound pompous and unnatural, but the active voice is always to be preferred in dialog.
Compare
- JIM: I was taken by the soldiers to the prison.
With
- JIM: The soldiers took me to the prison.
Dialog is always improved where we rewrite instances of passive expression in the active voice.
Grammar and Ambiguous Sentences
Ambiguous sentences can be unintentionally funny when they aren’t downright misleading. Many of these mistakes stem from problems with the placement of verbs.
- SAM : Walking down Main Street, the general store glittered with fresh fallen rain.
Oops. Did Sam really mean to suggest the general store was taking a walk? Probably not.
- JENNY: Last night I saw my boyfriend in a new dress.
Was the boyfriend wearing a new dress? Unlikely.
- BAXTER: I can recommend Simon as an excellent employee without any qualification.
Does Baxter mean that Simon is thoroughly unqualified? Again, no.
We know what the intended meaning is, but the audience can’t help but be forgiven for finding the actual expression amusing. The problem lies in the placement of the references (the way the verbs are associated with the nouns). Dangling present participles (-ing words at the beginning of a sentence) often create ambiguous sentences because they do not reference (are not related directly to) an appropriate noun.
- SAM: As I walk down Main Street, the general store glitters with fresh fallen rain.
The walk is now associated with Sam through the pronoun “I” and the general store is left to “glitter with fresh fallen rain” as intended.
- JENNY: I wore a new dress when I saw my boyfriend last night.
The wearing of the dress is now associated with Jenny (through the pronoun “I”) rather than the boyfriend.
- BAXTER: I can sincerely recommend Simon as an excellent employee.
In this case we could have associated “without qualification” with Baxter but even that is freighted with unintended humor (since it suggests Baxter has no qualification to comment). Eliminating the phrase entirely is the best option here.
These problems are only fixed where every action is associated with a noun identifying the actor.
Sometimes a sentence has the right number of nouns and associated verbs but the order in which they are expressed confuses the sentence meaning.
- MICHAEL: Rain moved the graduation exercises indoors which fell steadily all morning.
Did the indoors fall? No.
Compare it with
- MICHAEL: The rain fell steadily all morning and the graduation exercises were moved indoors.
And
- MICHAEL: The graduation exercises were moved indoors because the rain fell steadily all morning.
Keeping the correct verb as close as possible to the noun responsible for the action fixes a great many issues with dialog.
The placement of verbs is not the only contributor to ambiguity in sentences. Occasionally, adjectives are the culprit.
- JASMINE: Sarah came down the stairs with a new hat on her head, all black velvet.
This time we are dealing with adjectives rather than verbs. Was Sarah’s head made of black velvet? No. We fix this sentence by associating the adjectives with the hat, leaving Sarah to come down the stairs without confusion.
- JASMINE: Sarah came down the stairs wearing a black velvet hat.
Next
We have looked at sentences and how to use an understanding of grammar to improve them. Next time we’ll examine word choices and some of the rules of dialog.
Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2021 .
