EDITING 101: 19 – Sentence Fragments…

Posted on by Chris The Story Reading Ape

Sentence Fragments

Good morning, editing students! Today we’re going to tackle sentence fragments, which is something copy editors frequently tag as being a knotty issue in writing. The problem is, they’re only problematic half of the time, and only for some writers.

Which half? The narrative half. <— Aha! A sentence fragment. <— Another one! Ni! I said it again! Ni!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIV4poUZAQo

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_who_say_Ni

Ahem. And now for something completely different.

So, what is a sentence fragment and when shouldn’t you use it? A sentence fragment is a group of words used as a sentence but missing some of the parts of a sentence. Way back in school, you may remember learning that a sentence needs three parts: a noun, a verb, and a subject. “The ape ate bananas.” A sentence can have more parts than that—“The chubby ape ate many bananas yesterday.”—but those three parts are the basics. As you can see in the examples above, the groups of words “a sentence fragment” or “the narrative half” have no verb. Generally, the key to realizing something is a fragment is a missing verb.

The reason sentence fragments are used so commonly is because people tend to speak in fragments. Listen to yourself speaking to others, and to their responses, and you’ll notice speech is filled with fragments. And that is exactly when it is ok to use them.

“Hey, Mike! What’s up?”

“Nothing. Same as yesterday.” (fragments)

“Never anything different, eh?” (fragment)

“Nope.”

“Get together next week?” (fragment)

“I guess. Let me see what Cheryl says.” (first is fragment)

Fragments in dialogue are all right. Non-dialogue speech is called narrative—the descriptive or storytelling parts of writing. In narrative, unless it’s the writer’s inherent style and/or voice, writing should be grammatically correct. That means no fragments.

For example, if this was a writer’s typical style, then I’d leave it, despite my alert below:

Shyla walked to the store in the evening. No lights. No cars. Not even the usual patrol car. She glanced back over her shoulder. Nobody.

Aaack! This is a test of the Emergency Editorial System. This is only a test. Had this been an actual emergency, your editor would have fainted.

If fragments are not the normal style/voice of a particular writer and this paragraph suddenly popped up out of the blue, triggering an Emergency Editorial System alert, then it would need to be changed. Let’s try it this way:

Shyla walked to the story in the evening. There weren’t any lights or cars—not even the usual patrol car. She glanced back over her shoulder. Nobody was visible.

Do you see? These are whole sentences, including verbs. The one fragment, “not even the usual patrol car,” is now connected to the sentence with an em dash. Since it’s not standing alone, it would not be grammatically appropriate for a writer whose style is not filled with fragments.

Microsoft Word’s spell check system can alert you to the use of fragments. When you run a spell check, it will highlight fragments. The problem is, many times there are so many of them in dialogue that writers get used to saying, “Ignore this,” and ignore it in narrative, too, even when it’s not their style. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell Word to only highlight narrative fragments.

Some authors deliberately write in fragments, even when in narrative sections. It isn’t grammatically correct, but it can add suspense and tension to some genres. The example above would fit well into a crime story, but probably not a romance. 🙂

Have you noticed the “sentence fragment” tag when spell checking your work? What did you do about it?

Next week we’ll discuss ‘Dashes’

Susan

To see the index and catch up with missed episodes of this series – CLICK HERE

55 thoughts on “EDITING 101: 19 – Sentence Fragments…”

  3. English is a constantly changing language, and writers and editors are always learning new things and evolving. My apologies for the strident stance the original article here reflected! Yes, fragments are incorrect when it comes to grammar. You can’t get around those rules. But they are very useful in setting tone and increasing tension, especially in certain genres, and the use of them is inherent in some authors’ voice. 😀

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  4. I’m afraid I think the example you give of where not to use fragments, is simply not right, or at the very least misleading and inhibiting, certainly to those struggling to find their ‘voice’. By changing ‘Shyla walked to the store in the evening. No lights. No cars. Etc.’ as you do, into ‘correct’ narration style – ‘There weren’t any lights or cars—not even the usual patrol car, etc.’ – you strip from it an immediacy it has in the original – an immediacy that stems from its being a clear reflection of the thoughts going at that moment through the girl’s mind. By ‘correcting’ it you’ve interposed a conventional narrator between the girl and the reader. The edge has gone, where the edge added to a sense of something about to happen. Obviously some readers – you yourself being one, I assume – would disagree with what I’ve said. But in my opinion, in any artistic area – painting, writing, architecture, whatever – it’s unwise to pronounce on anything as ‘correct’ or not. I’m sure you’d agree that James Joyce would have felt the same way!

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    • Hi Jeff. Thanks for reading and commenting.

      Actually, I agree with you. I wrote this article at least three years ago and my editorial “voice” has changed and matured. Just now, as I re-read the article, I cringed inside because what you said is correct.

      If an author writes consistently in that style, I would not change it. I might point it out (Did you know you write almost entirely in fragments?) and I might make small changes if it was unclear. But the style and voice would stay put.

      Ok, so then, when do I think fragments are incorrect? When they’re not the writer’s inherent style and voice and they pop up here and there without rhyme or reason—in narrative.

      Maybe Chris will let me amend this article and repost it if I scurry about and do it quickly… 😀

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    • Hahahaha! No, your editor won’t kill you and I hope they’re more experienced than I was when I wrote this article! If we’re lucky, Chris has reposted amended text because I’m now not so strident about fragments! 😀

      Congratulations on writing in first person. Some people really hate it, for some reason. But I like it—it’s a refreshing change from the normal third person.

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  8. Sentence Fragments are useful. Especially in dialogue.- (Intended) Many grammar rules simply break down when it comes to fiction writing. A sentence frag is a perfect example. But, as a Science and Sc-Fi writer, I must admit that I use them in rigid science writing as well. Especially if I’m trying to make something dry sound conversational.

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