A Dangling…what??
When I first started working with my editor, she would send me back pages of the transcript with areas highlighted and the initials 'DM' beside them. I thought it might be a subtle way she was telling me the scene was dumb. In essence, she may have been. Eventually I get an email one day asking me, "Why do you persist on using dangling modifiers? I thought I have been pointing them out to you to correct."
As a line in a once famous movie went, "I think what we have here is a failure to communicate." I was overjoyed to find out that I wasn't really the dummy I thought, she thought I was. After several more emails, she understood I was still in the dark. The problem was she was correcting the sentence and just marking it for me to notice. Well, if I didn't know what she was correcting to begin with, then how the hell was I to know what she had corrected? Seems logical to me.
An example went something like this:
Standing, the tree blocked Leandro's view. Everyone can understand that sentence. What's the big deal? It's obvious, the tree blocked Leandro's view...as it stood?? No...Leandro stood, yeah that's it.
Sitting, the table was in Anaterri's way. Again, pretty apparent to me. The table was in Anaterri's way...after it sat. No, I mean after Anaterri sat, yup that's the ticket.
Finally after several of these were actually pointed out to me, I got it. I had to begin changing my thoughts as I was writing. I told Terri, my editor, that I felt like I was trying to write a book for Spanish speaking people and didn't understand how to speak Spanish. After some deliberation I finally figured out that I was writing a book for English speaking people, I just had to learn how to speak English.
What is really gratifying today and sometimes annoying, is when I am reading a novel by an "A-Lister" and I come across a dangling modifier. I just want to put the initials DM on the sentence, in red, and send the book back to them. Bad author, no biscuit. But, I would never do that because I know, in secret, they're just testing me to see if I catch it. Stay thirsty my friend.
As a line in a once famous movie went, "I think what we have here is a failure to communicate." I was overjoyed to find out that I wasn't really the dummy I thought, she thought I was. After several more emails, she understood I was still in the dark. The problem was she was correcting the sentence and just marking it for me to notice. Well, if I didn't know what she was correcting to begin with, then how the hell was I to know what she had corrected? Seems logical to me.
An example went something like this:
Standing, the tree blocked Leandro's view. Everyone can understand that sentence. What's the big deal? It's obvious, the tree blocked Leandro's view...as it stood?? No...Leandro stood, yeah that's it.
Sitting, the table was in Anaterri's way. Again, pretty apparent to me. The table was in Anaterri's way...after it sat. No, I mean after Anaterri sat, yup that's the ticket.
Finally after several of these were actually pointed out to me, I got it. I had to begin changing my thoughts as I was writing. I told Terri, my editor, that I felt like I was trying to write a book for Spanish speaking people and didn't understand how to speak Spanish. After some deliberation I finally figured out that I was writing a book for English speaking people, I just had to learn how to speak English.
What is really gratifying today and sometimes annoying, is when I am reading a novel by an "A-Lister" and I come across a dangling modifier. I just want to put the initials DM on the sentence, in red, and send the book back to them. Bad author, no biscuit. But, I would never do that because I know, in secret, they're just testing me to see if I catch it. Stay thirsty my friend.
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