Help needed.

Ambergold · Mar 8, 2007

Please could I have some advice as to whether these sentences are constructed correctly. Thank you kindly.

And everyone would constantly tell her how much she’d changed. And not in the, ‘you’ve come out a better person for your experience’ kind of way, but in the, ‘what the heck happened to you?’ Kind of way.

Maryn · Mar 9, 2007

I'm not crazy about the wordiness, but I see no overt mistakes except comma after both thes, the comma after but, and the capital K three words from the end.

To write it leaner, consider something like

Everyone told her how she'd changed, not in the 'you're a better person for the experience' way but the 'what the heck happened to you?' way.

Not that the shorter version is deathless prose, but it's 26 words versus 38, without anything lost that's likely to be missed. It eats up the hours, but going over your manuscript's first draft a sentence at a time can allow for massive tightening, lowering your word count substantially.

Maryn, who hopes this helps

Duncan J Macdonald · Mar 9, 2007

Ambergold said:
And everyone would constantly tell her how much she’d changed. And not in the, ‘you’ve come out a better person for your experience’ kind of way, but in the, ‘what the heck happened to you?’ Kind of way.

Adding to and reinforcing Maryn, I'd drop the leading 'And' in each sentence, capitalize the initial letter in each internal quote, lowercase the 'k' in Kind, and lose the commas after the two thes.

Maryn said:
To write it leaner, consider something like

Everyone told her how she'd changed, not in the 'you're a better person for the experience' way but the 'what the heck happened to you?' way.

Not that the shorter version is deathless prose, but it's 26 words versus 38, without anything lost that's likely to be missed.

Further tightening (unasked for, but sometimes fun to do):

She constantly heard she'd changed. Not 'You're a better person for the experience', but 'What the heck happened to you?'.

20 words, and I think that the meaning survives. Hard to say without more context though.

maestrowork · Mar 9, 2007

Strictly speaking, you don't need the comma after the thes.

Of course, there are many ways to rewrite that sentence, but I will refrain from suggesting any. It is a grammar board.

CaroGirl · Mar 9, 2007

I agree to take the commas out. Another suggestion, which I've seen done effectively, is to hyphen the entire descriptor. Considering you're using the expression as an adjective to modify "way", you could try this:

Not in the you’ve-come-out-a-better-person-for-your-experience kind of way.

Some people might not like that, but I do.

maestrowork · Mar 9, 2007

I like the hyphens only for short phrases: "the take-it-or-leave-it attitude." I think this one is a bit too long.

Ambergold · Mar 9, 2007

As always, great advice. Thank you all.
I will go back and tighten it up. I wasn't sure about the commas, so why I put them in there heaven knows. But I guess that's what its all about, trial and error.

veronie · Mar 9, 2007

Ambergold said:
And everyone would constantly tell her how much she’d changed. And not in the, ‘you’ve come out a better person for your experience’ kind of way, but in the, ‘what the heck happened to you?’ Kind of way.

I like the hyphen approach, too. But I think it adds a bit of levity, which you might want to avoid depending on the topic.

And everyone would constantly tell her how much she’d changed. And not in the you’ve-come-out-a-better-person-for-your-experience kind of way, but in the what-the-heck-happened-to-you? kind of way.

Maryn · Mar 10, 2007

I debated suggesting hyphenation, since it's my own preference, but in the end I decided the phrases were too long. I liked Duncan's shortening, too. (So much better than Crisco!)

Maryn, noting that as always, the replies prove what a knowledgeable and helpful group AW people are, herself excepted

Help needed.

Ambergold

Maryn

I Tried

Duncan J Macdonald

Plotting! Not Plodding!

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

CaroGirl

Living the dream

maestrowork

Fear the Death Ray

Ambergold

veronie

practical experience, FTW

Maryn

I Tried