Problem with the appearance of "then"

jannawrites · Feb 3, 2008

All through my ms, I have sentences like these examples:

"She fixed a salad and drink, then ate by herself in the living room."

"His visit at the hospital was short, then he ran errands around town."

Is this something that will stand out to readers, or is it so common it'll not be noticed?

Also, is it correct to have the comma before then?

dawinsor · Feb 3, 2008

I don't think the construction would stand out on the face of it, unless you'd used it too often.

I believe the comma is correct on the ground that the construction is elliptical, ie you're leaving out the "and" that might otherwise connect the clauses or phrases. A comma is often used where the word is left out.

Rolling Thunder · Feb 3, 2008

Yeah, I agree. I prefer to drop the conjunction 'and' at times. To my ear it drives the intention of the sentence forward.

jannawrites · Feb 3, 2008

Thanks. I'm noticing it myself, but I guess I'll not be certain if it's overused until I go back and edit the whole ms. But I cringe everytime I see it appear on the screen before me.

Rolling Thunder · Feb 3, 2008

Well, throw in the conjunction every now and then. It won't do any harm.

jannawrites · Feb 3, 2008

Yeah, you're right. Maybe if I toss a few "ands" in there it won't stick out like a such a sore thumb to me.

underthecity · Feb 3, 2008

The "then" will be noticed, trust me. I had my brother in law read a chapter I was revising, and his main comment was that I used "then" too many times.

He was right. I sure had. Since then, I've been trimming the excess thens whenever I can. And I was using the thens exactly the same way in your original post.

allen

jannawrites · Feb 3, 2008

Thanks, Allen. I'm glad someone with the same "problem" happened along. I'll certainly ask my betas (when the time comes) to keep their eyes open for it.

icerose · Feb 3, 2008

Use 'then' sparingly. I read a book by a rather famous author and the entire book read like this.

James crossed the living room, then he got himself a drink. Then he petted his cat. He spiked his girlfriend's punch with ink, then he sat down and smiled. Now he nursed on a stiff martini and now ink dribbled down his cheek.

Yes it was really that insufferable. At least every other sentence had a then or now. It was dreadful. I forced my way through it hoping it would get better. It never did.

ORION · Feb 3, 2008

What you are actually doing has really nothing to do with then - you are describing what a character is doing rather than creating an immediate scene.
Using your example.

She tore the lettuce into thin strips with her fingers they felt cold and clammy. Not unlike Bret's hands the last time he touched her. The clock ticked. Noon. It echoed in the empty house. She ate directly from the bowl as she walked from room to room. Noticing every detail. She needed to dust. To vacuum. The phone rang and she jumped. Let it ring. She said to herself. Let it ring. It's probably him.

I am not saying you should do this- it's just when I do my drafts I end up doing the same thing. description of ...he did this and then that and then this... That eventually changes into immediate scene...
hope this helps

Chase · Feb 3, 2008

jannawrites said:
"She fixed a salad and drink, then ate by herself in the living room."

"His visit at the hospital was short, then he ran errands around town."

Not about your too many uses, but the first sentence is punctuated correctly with the comma.

It's the second sentence where the comma makes a grammatical spice you might want to avoid. Some fixes:

"His visit at the hospital was short, and then he ran errands around town."

"His visit at the hospital was short; then he ran errands around town."

"His visit at the hospital was short. Then he ran errands around town."

To eliminate "then," consider, "After his short visit at the hospital, he ran errands around town."

Judg · Feb 3, 2008

jannawrites said:
Thanks, Allen. I'm glad someone with the same "problem" happened along. I'll certainly ask my betas (when the time comes) to keep their eyes open for it.

I wouldn't ask them, myself. If they volunteer the information, then you know you've REALLY got a problem.

Probably best to do a search for "then" and try to rewrite those sentences or paragraphs to find a punchier way of expressing the idea.

jannawrites · Feb 3, 2008

ORION said:
What you are actually doing has really nothing to do with then - you are describing what a character is doing rather than creating an immediate scene.
Using your example.

She tore the lettuce into thin strips with her fingers they felt cold and clammy. Not unlike Bret's hands the last time he touched her. The clock ticked. Noon. It echoed in the empty house. She ate directly from the bowl as she walked from room to room. Noticing every detail. She needed to dust. To vacuum. The phone rang and she jumped. Let it ring. She said to herself. Let it ring. It's probably him.

I am not saying you should do this- it's just when I do my drafts I end up doing the same thing. description of ...he did this and then that and then this... That eventually changes into immediate scene...
hope this helps

But I think you're right about this, Pat. I think I could flesh out moments like you've described more, to better show the situation. Maybe that's my problem. I'm afraid to get too wordy most times which, I think, is why I resort to the "this, then this" pattern. If I can expound upon the moment, I'll get better narrative and avoid the formatting issue. It's something I need to seriously consider.

Chase said:
...It's the second sentence where the comma makes a grammatical spice you might want to avoid. Some fixes:

"His visit at the hospital was short, and then he ran errands around town."

"His visit at the hospital was short; then he ran errands around town."

"His visit at the hospital was short. Then he ran errands around town."

To eliminate "then," consider, "After his short visit at the hospital, he ran errands around town."

I agree with you, Chase. Had I looked at my second example better, I'd have realized it was a poor one, for I'd typically choose to phrase it one of the ways you've shown. I do try to change the formatting of my sentence structure up, because I dislike nothing more than paragraph after paragraph of repetitive flow. But still yet, it's this silly then I keep getting stuck on. Like another post I made a while back, where I seem to make my characters "head into" another room all the time. Gah!

jenstrikesagain · Feb 3, 2008

I'm of the opinion that if God wanted us to write carefully, He wouldn't have sent us word processors. I use mine to do a search for "then," "that," anything ending in -ly and half a dozen other things. The first draft is as messy as needs to be. I spend a whole lot more time rewriting what I've written than I've ever spent writing. The Elements of Style (sort of the writing bible of the legal field) doesn't think you need a comma unless you're separating a subordinate clause, and "then" by itself wouldn't be a subordinate clause.

PS. Subordinate clause = Santa's assistant.

Joycecwilliams · Feb 3, 2008

jannawrites said:
All through my ms, I have sentences like these examples:

"She fixed a salad and drink, then ate by herself in the living room."

"His visit at the hospital was short, then he ran errands around town."

Is this something that will stand out to readers, or is it so common it'll not be noticed?

Also, is it correct to have the comma before then?

Hi Janna

I have the same problem with the word well. We tend to write how we speak and hence the same words keep popping up. Go through your manuscript and change them. The readers will notice.

How do I know? I go to a writers group every other other week. They are the ones (they are readers) who pointed it out. Some of the thens can be replaced with ands perhaps. Use your word processor to find and replace.

David I · Feb 3, 2008

Orion has some good points for you to think about. (But, then, she usually does.)

But, in general, you should trust yourself.

By that, I don't mean you should take whatever your write down as being solid gold. Instead, I mean that if you have a sneaking suspicion you are doing something too much, you are almost certainly doing it too much.

Doesn't mean you should never do it. But if it's your natural tendency and you're still thinking it's a too-common pattern--hey, it's a too-common pattern. No jury trial necessary apart from your inner ear.

chevbrock · Feb 3, 2008

I write YA, so it may not be relevant, but I have some personal rules and one of them is this:

If you have two things in your sentence that are joined together by a "then" or "and", you should either divide into two sentences or get rid of one of the things.

If it's making you cringe, it will make your readers cringe, too.

Furthermore, are you just going to leave me with, "His visit at the hospital was short"? I mean, what happened at the hospital? Who did he talk to? If it's not important, then why even mention it and have me asking these questions?

Dragon-lady · Feb 4, 2008

I can tell you I once got a ms back for a re-write from an editor saying that I overused "then." So the regular reader might not notice, but there's a good chance editors will. Also it's redundant. If you say your character did one thing and afterward say they did something else, it's pretty much a given that it wasn't simultaneous. Then is really a crutch when you don't feel confident in the intelligence of your reader to figure that out, I suspect. Or it was in my case.

But as always Orion has good advise. I generally find if I used then -- I need to re-write that part.

David I · Feb 4, 2008

There are some writers, however, who need to be encouraged to use more "thens".

"Then" shouldn't be allowed to proliferate like dandelions, but some people write these impossible sentences where what ought to be a series of events are written so that, grammatically, they all happen at once. A decent "then" can often slap things back into sequence.

blacbird · Feb 4, 2008

There are lots of ways to vary sentence structure and eliminate overuses of "then" or "and". For instance:

After his short visit at the hospital, he ran errands around town.

caw

Problem with the appearance of "then"

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