Yesterday I went over to Barnes and Noble and ordered a copy of Never Love a Stranger. (Yeah, it's weird to order your own book, but I haven't gotten my copies from NCP yet.) B&N didn't have any trouble ordering it, so this means readers shouldn't have trouble ordering it either. Yay! I also spoke to the manager, introducing myself as a local author, and not only did she agree to stock both my books, she invited me to participate in a September booksigning they're having for romance authors. Which just goes to show it never hurts to ask:-). Now that the distributor problems seem to be ironed out, I'll zoom over to my local Waldenbooks this weekend and see if I can get them to carry my books, too.
And below, on my post on self-proofing, Jaynie posted the following in comments: "One thing I'll add that I've noticed lately. Watch for ing words, especially at the beginning of a sentence. Example: YUCK - Shutting the door, she walked down the path.YAY She shut the door and walked down the path."
Grammatically speaking, is it bad to start a sentence with an "ing" word? I do this occasionally, to vary sentence structure, and hadn't realized it might be a problem. Then again, I'm fairly clueless when it comes to grammar, and always have been. Someone help me out here-- is it grammatically wrong to start a sentence this way?
I don't know if it is officially wrong, but it helps the reader out if they can see the order of what is happening.
ReplyDeleteShutting the door, she walked down the path.
This sentence implies that she is walking down the path and shutting the door at the same time.
Also it is a lot more passive than "She shut the door."
I don't have a problem with the occasional usage but mostly it annoys me.
Thanks for the clarification, Jaynie. I posted to a list about it, and a couple of people said exactly what you did-- that the order of the actions wasn't clear. I hadn't thought about that and will need to conscioiusly consider that in my writing. Thanks!
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