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Via the Phone

I planned to do some different comma exercises tonight, but I haven’t done any additional reading. I don’t know any new comma situations.

Those exercises bore readers no doubt, so writing them is probably a waste of your time even when it’s not a waste of mine.

Maybe I should read up on some other punctuation marks? I do seem to have trouble with some dialogue situations, and I’m clunky with that dash as we all know.

I could do with some extended work on tense too. I think I float in and out of my chosen tense occasionally. I suspect on 200 or so words that isn’t a good sin to have.

xxx words on day 589

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Scrivener And Commas

When I first installed Scrivener for Windows I’d expected to do more writing in it than I have. I’ve got a smooth system with WriteMonkey to WordPress, so I guess I’ve not seen much reason to defect even for a month during the trial.
I here now giving it a shot again. I’ll play here all this upcoming week to expand my initial experience. I’m not convinced I need this much tool at this point in my writing.

I recall having already written this, but I pulled out my grammar textbook to see what the “most introductory phrases” set off by a comma are in English. I got hung up on participial phrases. A participle being a verb used as an adverb (running water, fallen log, etc). A phrase being more words than just the participle. Tonight’s exercise then…

Running through the desert, Bob wondered where his pants might be located.
Fallen, the trees no longer made sounds.
Jumping for joy, Karen ran to her husband.
Not seeing the tree root, Bob fell.
Realizing this were like shooting fish in a barrel, the writer considered halting his exercise.
Finding his calisthenic muse, the writer continued.
Wondering if Texas had scored a touchdown yet, he typed on.
Chuckling, he wondered if he should just go to bed instead.

Now, I think I set these off as ‘interrupters’ when I place them in the middle of a sentence.

Bob, running through the desert, wondered where his pants might be located.
The trees, fallen, no longer made sounds.
Karen, jumping for joy, ran to her husband.

Finding that rhythm displeasing, the writer stopped doing that.

Also, I’m supposed to set off appositives, definitive words which equate with the word they follow, with commas.
That seems, appears, to be obvious, clear, to most people.

Yawning, he placed the laptop on the coffee table and reached for the remote.

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Neutralizing Eight Brothers

Reading up on introductory participial phrases last night, I decided I might add those to my list of comma exercises, but I won’t do that today.

Wither shall my women go?

If I were to make what I wrote the opening scene of a story, I’d need to feather in the differences between witches and sorceressess since I’ve essentially defined that as the dynamic between Rhoda and Wendle. Also, it might be good to explain why they’re meeting at a third party alter in the woods. As well as back down from the “I caught you on the way” feel I’ve set up so far.

Or write a better beginning.

Let’s think about the timing of that a bit. Pre-abduction just gives me an excuse to slap three chapters of back story before the kidnapping: Morgan, Wendle, and Rhoda. I could probably shorten that to two by doing Morgan-Wendle and Morgan-Rhoda. Then slice out the explicit kidnapping since I’d’ve foreshadowed that anyway and drop straight to what I’ve already written. At least that way I’m grounding the reader and getting some of the faceplant effect of what’s written. Caring for Morgan as Wendle and Rhoda do pulls in sympathy to make Morgan less of a McGuffin.

Then there’s the other people likely to want to rescue Morgan I need to neutralize: the eight brothers. One could be dead already, one could be in a politically difficult position, one could be a fuck-up, two could be unreachable, one could be missing, two could be with her. That was easy.

267 words on day 587