Putting Zing into Your Long Action

The -ing form of verbs and the beauty of cumulative sentence

I can’t sleep. At four this morning, I awoke with the realization that beauty cannot be argued, and the essay I wanted to write, this essay, was doomed to failure. I cannot redeem the -ing form of verbs in any context if all it takes is for my reader to say: nope, still ugly.

Still, the time has come to try.

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YouTuber Shaelin Bishop once compared the sound of -ing verbs to a chainsaw, a distaste for the form instilled in her by her MFA professor. Others, like Alkira Publishing, instruct us to improve our writing by removing all the -ing verbs. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that an author in search of good prose, must remove their -ing verbs.

I referenced all this in my first essay discussing Hemingway’s use of the cumulative sentence:

Instead of ending, the sentence continues, using a cumulative syntax that is another signature of Hemingway and uses those -ing ending words that are so often labeled “off limits” by today’s writers.

The sentence in question was this one: “The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterwards the road bare and white except for the leaves.”

Perhaps, today, Hemingway would be told to rewrite the sentence so it ended differently:

The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops as they marched along the road and as the dust rose and the leaves, stirred by the breeze, fell and as the soldiers marched and, afterwards, left the road bare and white except for the leaves.

There are methods available in cumulative syntax that don’t employ the -ing form of verbs, but do they improve upon Hemingway or detract from the clarity of his image?

When we discuss the -ing form, we’re generally talking about gerunds, in which the verb becomes a noun; or present participles, in which the verb is part of a continuous action phrase. However, the -ing form can also form compound nouns like swimming pool and transform in an adjective as in bubbling brook, and the question I raise is whether there are conditions in which the -ing form finds its place in beautiful contemporary prose.

According to Brooks Landon, the problem we find with long sentences is the use of bound modifiers, which I was forced to use in order to remove the -ing verb form (which transforms the verb into an adjective, each a lead to its own adjectival phrase, moving the sentence forward step by step). We saw the troops as they marched along the road is a fine short sentence, but in constructing long sentences, the extra verbiage clutters the mind and confuses the meaning. When we remove as they to create the free modifier marching along the road, we clarify the meaning of the sentence rather than obscure it.

On a basic level, the concern over -ing verbs is justified. Jim ran to the store sounds better than Jim was running to the store, and we may want to avoid their use as gerunds: Running to the store was the height of Jim’s day. Where this rule breaks down is in the construction of the long sentences that cumulative structure allows.

Jim ran to the store, winded by the distance, his face red and his lungs aching, determined that only death would keep him from securing the medication in time.

This sentence, in which I’ve avoided the use of phrases beginning with -ing verbs, will help illustrate their use. Winded is a description, which is not to say that using a description here is wrong, but to break away from a dependence on a string of short sentences to convey action, the -ing form is required.

Jim ran to the store, dodging cars and pedestrians, crying out for the world to part before him, willing his legs to move faster, praying he could return with the inhaler in time.

It may be corny for me to say, but used to convey action in a series of free modifiers, I suggest the zing form of the verb works beautifully.

What is Beauty in Prose?

There are some key principles that can aid or interfere with the potential of beauty in our writing, and I suspect that flow is primary among them. For the most part, though, any discussion of beauty is subjective. There is no one right style, and if I want to address the aesthetic goal of prose, any concept forwarded would have to bridge those differences.

Beauty incorporates the greatest ease of reading for the style in question. My current serial, Kraken in a Coffee Cup, is a difficult read because it echoes conventions of the nineteenth century, somewhat modernized. I’m not saying that beauty is easy reading, but rather that even with something as difficult as Kraken, the ideal makes it as easy on the reader as possible. Good writing avoids unnecessary¹ difficulties, and its ideas flow smoothly.

A paragraph from chapter 19:

Their captain leans over the pallid bulwarks and puts his trumpet to his mouth to hail, but he cannot overcome the storm. For a moment, I think we will lower a boat to board her, but we let her pass, as if she were not the very quarry of our hunt. The two wakes cross, and shoals of fish dart away with shuddering fins and range themselves fore and aft with the Starling’s flanks. At orders, Mr. Graveling pulls us round to the chase, and I see in those fish that strange blue glow as phosphorescent eddies spin away from the Starling’s tail.

It’s crass to use something I’ve had a hand in as an example of beauty, but because of its difficulties, it becomes illustrative of the point. (Also, being different from my usual style, I’m psychologically poised to find it superior to my other writing—which I know isn’t the case. Intellectually, I believe this. Emotionally, anything different is better.)

Beauty moves; cluttered writing stagnates.

It’s another point from Landon that a good sentence progresses forward in steps. An ugly sentence burdens itself with baggage that fails to move forward, and that can be a difficult concept to grasp in theory. Let me illustrate:

The beleaguered kingdom of Thesick’s mighty and decorated second battalion’s erstwhile captain gazed over the city wall in prescient defeat.

The first twelve words of the sentence are its subject, a weight of description that does nothing to move the sentence forward, but we can break it up with cumulative syntax, aiding its readability.

The erstwhile captain, once infamous in battle and feared even at home, gazed over the city wall in prescient defeat, feeling the fall of Thesick, king and kingdom, in the sloped shoulders of its battled-beleaguered soldiers—his old battalion hobbling home, dragging their weapons and wounded, averting their eyes from his.

In this version, I quickly identify the subject and back it up with additional detail that’s focused on the subject. The sentence has a better feeling of movement, and that movement brings us through the information one section at a time, allowing us to digest all that we’ve been shown. As we move into the next sentence, we’ll focus on the known information before moving into the new, creating flow.

I have an affinity for alliteration, and that shows itself in the example. We can apply whatever techniques feel appropriate to our style once we get out of our own way. Stylistic opposites, like Cormac McCarthy and Sylvia Plath, are defended by their fans, some of us seeing beauty in them both.

The beauty of a garden is aided first in the removal of trash and weeds and then in deciding what plants belong and how they should be presented. A cumulative sentence’s adjectival phrases allow us to cleanly present action in a cascade of easily digested information that allow the beauty of our style to flourish. The -ing verbs become railroad ties which we’ve repurposed in constructing our flower beds, no longer a hazard and an eyesore, but the backbone of our garden’s structure.

— Thaddeus Thomas

Recommendations for Fiction on Substack

1. One issue drawn with my definitions is “who’s to say” what’s unnecessary. Who’s to say anything? My definitions don’t create an absolute. Their my suggestion for how you determine something for yourself.

In another essay, my definition of purple prose is empty style. I don’t offer a universal dictum telling you what empty style is, beyond verbiage that offers the reader no additional meaning. Others may assume that fits authors and works you love. Who cares? They’re wrong. Not understanding a style doesn’t render it empty.