"AS" AND "-ING" CONSTRUCTIONS

Back to writing for a bit...

"As" and "ing" Are Considered Hack and Amateurish Constructions
Les Edgerton

There are two stylistic constructions that are generally considered "hack" writing constructions, namely:

Pulling off her gloves, she turned to face him.
or
As she pulled off her gloves, she turned to face him.

Both the as construction and the -ing construction as used above are correct grammatically and express the action clearly and unambiguously. But notice that both of these constructions take a bit of action ("She pulled off her gloves...") and tuck it away into a dependent clause. ("Pulling off her gloves..."). This tends to place some of your action at one remove from your reader, to make the actions seem incidental, unimportant. And so if you use these constructions often, you weaken your writing.

Another reason to avoid the as and -ing constructions is that they sometimes give rise to physical impossibilities. Say you're writing as an archaeologist character describing her field work and you write, "Disappearing into my tent, I changed into fresh clothes." The -ing construction forces simultaneity on two actions that can't possibly be simultaneous. The archaeologist didn't duck into the tent and pull on clean clothes at the same time - she was an archaeologist, not a contortionist.

A better alternative to the above example would be to write, "She pulled off her gloves, turned to face him." Or, you can make an -ing phrase less conspicuous by moving it to the middle of the sentence rather than the beginning. The participle construction has a particularly amateurish flavor when placed at the beginning of the sentence.

Look at the following examples to see how these constructions weaken your writing, with the as and -ing constructions in boldfaced type:

Ripping off several large, dripping hunks of burrito, she pulled a chair up to the kitchen table and took a large bite. As she chewed, she wondered who she was maddest at. James, she decided.

The doorbell rang. "Cheryl, it's me!" boomed a deep, authoritative voice. "James!"

Spotting her favorite red silk kimono crumpled on the floor, Cheryl stooped over and picked it up. As she pulled the kimono over her shoulders, she said a prayer of thanks that the wrinkled look was in.

As her fingers unfastened the chain lock, she wondered how James had gotten her address. It wasn't listed in the telephone book.

"Good evening," James greeted with a small bow as the door swung open.

"The bug man came last week," Cheryl said sarcastically, refusing to budge from the door, "I thought he'd exterminated all the pests in my life, but I guess he must have missed one. A big one."

"Funny, very funny," James said, clearly not amused as he leaned an arm against the door jamb. "Now you'd better let me in before I start causing a scene."

Now take a look at the same scene again, with the as and -ing clauses removed, along with some of the other problems, such as eliminating weak adverbs:

She pulled up a chair to the kitchen table and took a large bite of the burrito she'd found behind the milk and orange juice bottles. Who was she maddest at? Probably James.

The doorbell rang. "Cheryl, it's me!"

James. It had to be.

Cheryl sighed, stooped over and picked up her red silk kimono from the floor. Thank god the wrinkled look was in. But how had James gotten her address? It wasn't listed in the telephone book.

"Good evening." He made a small bow.

"The bug man came last week." Cheryl didn't budge from the door. "I thought he'd exterminated all the pests in my life, but I guess he must have missed a big one."

"Funny, very funny." James leaned an arm against the door jamb. "You'd better let me in before I start causing a scene."

This admittedly isn't deathless prose, but the editing has made the passage subtler and more professional. Notice that also missing in the second version are the weak adverbs and some of the other, unnecessary slag of the first version.

The point is, when an editor sees as and -ing constructions, a little red light goes off and he thinks, "Amateur." You don't want that to happen. This is one of the first things you should check for in your rewrites. Use your "Find" feature to seek out and destroy all of these hack constructions, along with the -ly adverbs that almost always just weaken the prose.