#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 16 Nbr 06 — Sentence fragments? Punchy? Cliché? Essential? ...

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2024-12-07 02:00:18

#WritersCoffeeClub Ch 16 Nbr 06 — Sentence fragments? Punchy? Cliché? Essential? Wrong? What's a sentence fragment?

The short answer to this question is that I write in 1st person. Everything is dialogue, including all the narrative. People rarely speak in full sentences. That results in a fair number of sentence fragments. Depending on the mood of the POV, you could get lots of conjunctions that are almost run on, or if things are fast and furious, lots of little sentences that are dependent on earlier sentences.

That said, I do use fragments for emphasis and for punctuation. I wrote the following example as part of an answer to another challenge game today:

He bought her the jewelry for selfish reasons. When they were horsing around one day, she cut him and drew blood. Inadvertently.

I also use it for pacing, which is a code word for creating rhythm in prose as you might do with other techniques in poetry. Here's an example from the WIP:

A vivid dream of the giants in blue jackets launching supersonic pellets at our landing vehicle shocked me awake. I descended to my knees in a crouch having jumped from sleep. I felt my ears move, what little they could, as I found myself cringing, holding my breath, waiting for a dreaded ping.

Which.

Didn't.

Come.

I inhaled. Looking to my right, I found Streak lying there, asleep.

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