The major overhaul: Streamlining even the most problematic sentences

It was the best of sentences, it was the worst of sentences - June Casagrande 2010

The major overhaul: Streamlining even the most problematic sentences

In previous chapters, we've seen some simple ways to pare down inefficient sentences. But some sentences have deeper structural problems that are harder to identify and harder to fix. Luckily, you now have enough grammar under your belt to tackle any problem that can muck up a sentence.

Whenever you're faced with a problem sentence, start by looking for its main clause—that is, its main subject and verb:

This intimate and discerning depiction of the impact of migration on families left behind by loved ones who travel north emerges as a nuanced portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story.

This is a description of a movie in a film festival. Movie loglines are tough to write because they're supposed to be kept to just one or two sentences. But this sentence appeared in a brochure—not in a pitch to a Hollywood executive. So the writer had the elbow room to improve it. The question, of course, is how?

Start by isolating the main subject, depiction, and verb, emerges. So, at its heart, our sentence is

This depiction emerges.

That's a complete sentence. But is it a complete thought? Does it tell the Reader what to expect from this movie? Not even close. Clearly, we need some of that other stuff. For example, depiction, on its own, is painfully devoid of any solid information. Also, a depiction is always a depiction of something. That's where the trouble began for the writer. A prepositional phrase—an of phrase—was needed just to make sense of the subject.

Then there's emerges. This is an intransitive verb, so it doesn't need an object. But it sure needs something. Hence the as that follows. This as creates a vehicle to help tell the Reader what, exactly, depiction is doing in this sentence. The depiction is not just emerging— coming out of a hole or coming into the spotlight. It's emerging as something. We can presume that by emerging as, the writer means "reveals itself to be" or "comes to be" or "turns out to be" or "becomes." In other words, emerges as is the writer's substitute for is. Yes, it's more creative than is, but that creativity comes at too high a price. We already have a subject that needs a prepositional phrase to make sense. Now we're using a verb that also needs a prepositional phrase to make sense. (Note: As is often a conjunction. But in our sentence it's a preposition. We know this because subordinating conjunctions like as introduce whole clauses but prepositions take objects—nouns or pronouns, like portrait.)

To mean anything at all, our main clause must be expanded to

This depiction of the impact of migration emerges as a nuanced portrait.

Impact is the object of a preposition in a prepositional phrase. Then impact is followed by its own prepositional phrase, of migration, yet impact is still begging for yet another prepositional phrase. Impacts are usually impacts on someone or something. Hence on families in the writer's original:

of the impact of migration on families

What families? Well, we have a modifier to answer that. It's the participial phrase left behind. But that modifier requires a prepositional phrase, by loved ones. And loved ones, the object of the preposition by, takes as a modifier the relative clause who travel north. Each of the modifying phrases and clauses is underlined here:

This depiction of the impact of migration on families left behind by loved ones who travel north

All that comes before we even get to the verb.

Then, after the verb emerges, which requires its own prepositional phrase, as a portrait, we still need two more prepositional phrases: of "the other side" and of the immigration story.

emerges as a portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story

After all that, the writer squeezed in three adjectives: intimate and discerning before depiction and nuanced before portrait.

Sift through all the clutter in this sentence and you find that the very heart—the very point of our main clause—is

This depiction is a portrait.

That's a whole lotta nuthin'. It's like saying this picture is an image, this person is a man, or this car is a vehicle. A total waste of words that, ironically, happened in a place where economy of words was paramount. The main clause contained no new information. The substantive stuff was all crammed into prepositional phrases and other sentence accessories.

Despite all these problems, the writer did a pretty impressive job of getting the point across. We know what the film is about and we even get a sense of mood. But how could we do better?

Well, our main clause contains both a troublesome noun and a troublesome verb. Let's try replacing them. Whenever you're struggling with a vague or troublesome noun, first consider the simplest alternatives. Ask yourself, what is this thing we're talking about? This depiction referred to a film. Emerges really referred to a state of being. Simplify them and you get

I still don't like our verb. Yes, it's a simpler alternative to emerges as. But is sets up something self-evident, like this film is a film. Is there any more interesting action we could convey with our verb? Yes.

This film depicts.

Now we have a more tangible (if more pedestrian) subject and a more action-oriented verb. If we drop this into the first part of our sentence, we end up with something like this:

This intimate and discerning film depicts the impact of migration on families left behind by loved ones who travel north.

But we have this left over from the original:

a nuanced portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story

What can we do with this leftover information? We could tack it on:

This intimate and discerning film depicts the impact of migration on families left behind by loved ones who travel north—a nuanced portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story.

Not bad. But the crux of our sentence is now This film depicts the impact and is a portrait.

So we're still making the hollow statement this film is a portrait. We could break our sentence into two, thereby giving portrait a real job to do:

This intimate and discerning film depicts the impact of migration on families left behind by loved ones who travel north. It is a nuanced portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story.

Or we could use the coordinator and and another verb like forms to keep everything in a single sentence:

This intimate and discerning film depicts the impact of migration on families left behind by loved ones who travel north and forms a nuanced portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story.

Or better yet we could avoid the redundancy of this film forms a portrait by making portrait our main subject:

This intimate, discerning, and nuanced portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story depicts the impact on families left behind by loved ones who travel north.

Now we can see that we sure did have a lot of adjectives offering commentary on this film. Maybe we can do without one. For example, discerning surely meant something important to the writer. But it doesn't mean much to a Reader. If we're voting one of them off the island, that would be my pick:

This intimate and nuanced portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story depicts the impact on families left behind by loved ones who travel north.

We might even ditch another adjective:

This intimate portrait of "the other side" of the immigration story depicts the impact on families left behind by loved ones who travel north.

I like this much better. It still has stacked modifiers—four prepositional phrases and a relative clause. It still has impact on. But these no longer seem like problems because the noise around them has been silenced.

And this isn't the only alternative. Your grammar skills open up a world of choices:

By looking at the families left behind when loved ones travel north, this intimate and discerning film shows the other side of the immigration story.

Film Name Unknown is an intimate portrait of the families whose loved ones move north to find work.

We've all heard the stories of Mexican nationals who travel north to find work. But what about the families they leave behind? The intimate and nuanced Film Name Unknown tells their stories.

When Jose left Guatemala to find work in the United States, he did it for his family. Little did he know the ripple effect that his absence would create.

Some of these examples wouldn't work. The last two especially don't have the tone of film festival movie descriptions. But these examples help us see the wide range of possibilities that open up once we get to the heart of a sentence and consider what, exactly, we're trying to say.

Let's look at another sentence:

The United States government's plan to rid banks of lethal assets has precious metals investors speculating that the economy and lending groups may be reviving.

Our subject is plan. Our verb is has. The object of our verb is investors followed by the modifier speculating. Remember from chapter 10 that participles can work as modifiers.

Any sentence built on a foundation of has + noun or pronoun + present participle stuffs the action into a participial phrase or clause: The plan has them speculating. To make speculating a real action, you'd have to rejigger the whole sentence:

Since the government announced plans to rid banks of lethal assets, precious metals investors are speculating that the economy and lending groups may be reviving.

The government plans to rid banks of lethal assets. So precious metals investors are speculating that the economy and lending groups may be reviving.

Precious metals investors are speculating that the economy and lending groups may be reviving. Why? Because the government plans to rid banks of lethal assets.

In all of these, we made speculating an action instead of a modifier. In the last two examples, we changed the noun plans into the verb plans—extracting another action out of our original sentence.

Here's a longer passage. It's modeled after a real excerpt from an article I edited:

Sky diving. Rock climbing. River rafting. Guess which one is the odd man out in the emerging world of new vacation choices for an aging population that, increasingly, is more active and healthy and less willing to follow their parents'

footsteps when it comes to choosing how to live out their golden years. The answer: They all belong in the mix, according to gerontology experts.

The fourth sentence is extremely problematic. It's too busy, but that's not the worst of it. The whole sentence teeters on the idea that the Reader is supposed to guess which one of the listed items is the odd man out. What's the reward for the Reader who takes up the challenge? He learns that there is no odd man out. They all belong in the mix. It's as if the Cookie Monster on Sesame Street had sung his "One of These Things Is Not Like the Other" song in front of identical plates of cookies.

The very point of the fourth sentence had to go. Here's how the passage looked after I edited it:

Skydiving. Rock climbing. River rafting. They're not exactly hallmarks of senior recreation. But a new generation of seniors is changing that. Healthier and more adventurous than the generations of retirees before them, today's seniors are making some surprising choices about how to spend their golden years.

Here's another problem sentence. It uses a clause in place of a noun phrase and another clause as a modifier:

That you work so hard is the reason that you're getting a raise.

Fix it by looking for ways to get the action unstuck: You work hard. So you're getting a raise.

Here's good exercise. Find the problem in the following sentence:

Working in both the feature film and television worlds, Radoff Entertainment develops material for both the big and small screens.

You'd be amazed how often I see sentences like this. In fact, this is a disguised version of a real sentence I copyedited. The clauses are redundant. Notice how much better the sentence is chopped in half:

Radoff Entertainment develops feature films and television programs.

Here's a sentence that you should now know how to improve:

Another activity at the Family Fun Center is the opportunity for kids to create a journal.

This has that a blank is a blank structure as its main clause, stating little more than an activity is an opportunity. You'd do better to make the main verb a real action:

Kids at the Family Fun Center can also create a journal.

Now that you're getting good at this, we can look at a longer piece. Here's a thinly disguised rewrite of an unpublished story by an amateur writer. As you read it, keep an eye out for words, phrases, and even whole sentences that should go:

I have done something everyone knows you shouldn't do— that being I fell for a @!#$ friend.

Slowly over a period of just a few weeks I fell in love with him. I couldn't help myself even though I had known that it was a stupid thing to do and that such actions always have consequences. Now it appears I have just two choices. The first option is the most logical one; I should dump him and sever all contact before I fall even more deeply in love with him. The second option is to try to make a relationship that is serious and exclusive, but I have a feeling that that won't pan out. We're two different people. So of course I have selected none of these choices and simply continue sleeping with him.

Slowly turning the knob on a Sunday morning, I opened the door to Joe's apartment and peered inside. Joe was seated at his desk with a paintbrush in hand and he dabbed at a paint palette lying on a wooden chair beside him.

No doubt, the writer figured that every one of these words was needed. But the writer was wrong. The passage is teeming with unnecessary and obvious statements, flabby prose, and wasteful redundancies. If I were editing this story, here's what I would do to it:

The first sentence was too wordy. That being is especially flabby and unprofessional. So I chopped. Perhaps the word stupid doesn't capture what the writer wanted to say. That's why I'd run all these changes by her. But, be it stupid or wrong or moronic or unwise or shortsighted or childish, somewhere out there is a word that will say what she means in fewer than six words.

In the original story, @!#$ actually appeared in front of the noun. Bad choice. For one thing, if you're going to swear, fucking swear already. But, more important, any swear word here—explicit or candy coated—enfeebles the information. I fell for a friend has a power all its own. The writer's attempt to add oomph actually weakened her point.

I couldn't help myself shows that the protagonist was conflicted. The rest just flogs the obvious.

When you lay out two options, there's no need to first insert a sentence saying that you're about to lay out two options. Also, after the writer said she was about to lay out two options, she dedicated a whole sentence to evaluating one of the options she had yet to lay out. Whenever you find yourself buried under so many words, start by asking: can't I just chop all this out? The answer is usually yes.

I should dump him, all by itself, makes it clear that she has options and which one she believes is best. Neither of the two preceding sentences was needed at all. They hurt the passage.

As for I should dump him and sever all contact: Why not dump him and sever all contact and change your phone number and avoid eye contact with anyone who has his hair color and burn every photo you have of him and tell him his mama's a tramp and try to get on with your life and call that cute barista at your local Starbucks? In other words, was it really necessary to dump him and sever all contact? Isn't there a single action—say, dumping—that could cover all the necessary bases here? Perhaps not, but probably.

Either a serious relationship or an exclusive relationship says enough. Even a serious, exclusive relationship is better than a relationship that is serious and exclusive.

As worded, this is meaningless. Show me any two people and I'll show you two different people. But even if the writer had found a more logical way to make her point, perhaps with we're too different, this would raise questions she's not answering. If the protagonist suspects the relationship won't pan out, it's clear she has her reasons. To say it's because they're two different people or even too different is a tease. It's better to leave some stuff unexplained than to waste the Reader's time with half an answer or by telling him something he already knew: that people are different.

On the other hand, the writer could have said, "We're too different. I eat veal topped with foie gras, and he's a member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Lima Beans."

The point is, either explain or don't. But don't half-ass it.

There were a lot of unnecessary words here. I just continue sleeping with him makes it clear that she rejected the dump-him option and the get-serious option.

I think I speak for Readers everywhere when I say we're familiar with the mechanics of door opening. No strangers to knob turning are we. So unless how she opened the door was important or interesting or entertaining, spare us the details. You could cut that down even more if you wanted to: On a Sunday morning, I walked into Joe's apartment to find him sitting at his desk. In fact, the act of entering may not be relevant at all: On a Sunday morning, Joe was seated at his desk. It's up to you. Just never fall victim to the idea that every little action in your story is critical. It's not.

If you have a character who's dabbing a paintbrush into the colors on a palette, is it really worth the words to say the paintbrush is in hand? Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, no, it's not.

Of course, none of this is law. Skilled writers can defy all these principles effectively and with grace. But novice writers need to understand the concepts here. Flabby prose, repetitiveness, and statements beleaguering the obvious separate the amateurs from the pros. Make it a habit to seek out such lard in your own writing and start to look for ways in which chopping up or chopping out problem sentences can improve a whole work.