Just to Be Clear: Writing What You Mean: Beyond the Style Manual, #4

By Red Adept Publishing and Lynn McNamee

Did you write what you meant to write? Is your meaning clear, or will readers misunderstand?

This style guide helps authors to make sure their writing is clear on the sentence level. “Just to Be Clear: Writing What You Mean” covers the following topics:

Dangling Participles

Misused Participial Phrases

Misplaced Prepositional Phrases

Squinting Modifiers

Vague Antecedents

Paragraphing Techniques

Confusing Pairs & Lists

Most sections include a quiz, so writers can test their knowledge of the material.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Adept Publishing
• Release date: Sep 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781516315178

Book preview

Introduction

The most difficult question for writers to answer about their own writing is: Did I say what I meant to say? The writer knows the intention behind each sentence, so discerning how a reader might construe the meaning is not easy.

One of the toughest types of errors for authors to find in their own writing is misplaced or dangling modifiers. Some of these are actual grammatical errors. Others are more subjective, but they can cause readers to stumble or misunderstand a sentence. While the meaning can sometimes be inferred from context, the last thing an author wants is for a reader to be confused while trying to enjoy a novel.

Another issue that infringes on clarity is that of vague antecedents. If a reader can’t tell who or what a pronoun is referring to, entire scenes can be confusing or completely misunderstood.

Finally, this guide will also address proper paragraphing, which can help writers avoid mistakes and make books flow better for a reader.

No substitute exists for having a second (or third or fourth) pair of eyes on a manuscript, whether those eyes belong to a professional editor or some knowledgeable beta readers. However, every author should understand the grammar and reasoning behind sentence structures that can cause problems for readers.

Many sections are followed by quizzes. The answers to the quizzes are on the following pages.

Dangling Participles

The most common type of misplaced modifier is the dangling participle.

A participle is a form a verb takes when it’s preceded by had or are. (Other forms of have or be can make a verb take a participle form, but these two are the simplest to keep in mind.)

Adding had creates the past participle, while adding are creates the present participle.

Examples:

We had turned a corner. (Turned is the