Chapter 2 — Verbal Sentence Openers
If the
reader finds the following sentence opener:
Zigzagging
and weaving around …
Without
even mentioning a subject, the author shapes an image in the reader’s mind, who
has no choice but to race ahead to see what it is that is moving in such fashion.
The participials—forms of verbs ending in, -ed, or -t—zigzagging and weaving
not only reflect movement, but also create an expectation, and an incentive to
satisfy curiosity. And that is what all authors strive for; that is, to keep
the reader busy, curious, guessing what falls next.
Scott
Fitzgerald in a letter to his daughter quoted a verse
from Keat’s poem Eve of Saint Agnes,
to point out how verb-participials move and carry the sentence:
The
hare limped trembling through the frozen grass
When one
hears an imperative, one pays attention, as in when one hears:
“Don’t do that!”
Even when
the command is subdue and conversational, the reader pays attention, as when
Herman Melville draws the reader to his monumental Moby Dick with: “Call me Ishmael.”
Verbs and
verbals pack and unleash a unique type energy that other parts of speech don’t.
Defining the Verbals
Verbals are
verb forms that are used not as verbs, but as:
Nouns
(gerunds and infinitives)
The General was fired for retreating.
To cook was an annoyance.
The General was fired for retreating.
To cook was an annoyance.
Adjectives
(participles and infinitives)
Flying planes may be dangerous.
The Senator had no reason to lie.
Flying planes may be dangerous.
The Senator had no reason to lie.
Adverbs (infinitives)
She went to bat.
She dressed to kill.
She went to bat.
She dressed to kill.
That
verbals are powerful as sentence openers there’s no doubt. Yet, many writers
—even successful writers— prefer to pepper their writing with proper adjectives
and adverbs. In my view, the verb is king; and like in the game of chess all
others pieces, though important, they are so only in relation to the king.
If we
employ the verb ‘to be’ continuously, it is a sign of weak writing. So, to make
your writing strong, we urge you to follow this simple guideline: prefer verbals and strong
verbs; avoid weak verbs [see glossary].
And even
when using ‘to be’ as a copula, find a way to buttress it with verbals. Scott
Fitzgerald made an entry in a notebook, which shows his
preoccupation —or obsession, one might say— with verbs:
Forgotten is forgiven
Verbals
come in different forms and they are all effective because they include a verb
form. So strong are these verbals that master writers use them not only to open
sentences, but also to open paragraphs—even books.
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