Thursday, June 30, 2005

JDC asked me to comment on this. There's some kind of brouhaha over at Zoetrope about using "ing" verbs.

I'm in favor of all parts of speech. "Ing" verbs denote continuous action. Useful when you come into the scene on something that's already started.

Kay comes into the kitchen, where Jay is cleaning the oven.

(Or, as I'd really write it:

Kay comes into the kitchen, where Jay has his head in the oven. Is he cleaning it? A grubby arm comes out, grabs a scrubby, and goes back in again. Yep.)

Without "ing" verbs it's hard to give the right mental picture:

Kay comes into the kitchen. Jay cleans the oven.

On the other hand beginning writers do sometimes seem too enamored of the present participle:

Kay is coming into the kitchen, which Jay is cleaning.

English is an extremely powerful tool, developed and refined over millenia. I wouldn't willingly part with a scrap of it. Or as the bumper sticker says, "Sorry, but my karma just ran over your dogma."

3:38 AM

1 Comments:

I had this discussion on Bill Martell's site. I try to eliminate as many "ing" words as possible as it reduces the "immediacy" of the read (which is important as I write mostly horror and action).

Off the top of my head the only time I use "ing" words is with a very forceful verb such as: firing, pummeling, blasting, and the like:

Mike bursts through the kitchen door, splintering the door jam and blasting away at anything that moves...

By  Cunningham, at 1:55 PM  

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