Last week, my wife picked up the novel SWEETHEARTS by Sara Zarr, and told me that it had "one of the most gripping openings I’ve ever seen." Intrigued, I had to look at it, too. It tells the story of a young girl in first person, and the opening sentences are all incomplete. (I’d use some examples, but I’d rather have you hunt down the book on your own. Sara is a wonderful writer.)
As children, we’re taught to write only in complete sentences, with subjects, verbs, and objects. That’s because teachers want you to be specific when you supply them with information. For example, if a teacher asks "How does water get from the mountains to the plains," my son would love to say, "Aquifers." But the teacher doesn’t know if he’s just throwing out a buzz word, or if he really understands what an aquifer is. So he demands a complete sentence as an answer.
Yet in the real world, we don’t talk in complete sentences. Here’s the way people really talk, at least in my neck of the woods:
"Hey, how ya doin’?"
"Not bad. You?"
"Can’t complain."
And so on. Yet very often, I’ll see new authors write all dialog in complete sentences. They might write like this:
"How are you doing, Joseph?"
"I’m fine, I suppose. How are you doing?"
"Well, I can’t complain."
Do you see how stilted and clunky that begins to sound after a few sentences? It’s freakin’ unnatural!
So when you write dialog in particular, full sentences should be optional. However, incomplete sentences can be used to excellent effect in description as well.
Years ago, I wanted to open a chapter with an image of stars. I wanted the reader to imagine looking up into a night sky, but not all night skies are created equal. When you’re in a city where light and pollution obscures your view, or on a night when the moon is out, your view of the stars is dimmed. So I decided to describe a night sky, with emphasis on stars. I wanted the reader to imagine a sky full of stars all at once. I wanted them to imagine a dark night, in the wilderness, where you look up at the sky and the sight takes your breath away, a night where you feel as if you can go walking safely by starlight. So I decided to begin with something like "Ten thousand stars glimmered in a moonless sky."
But I had a problem. You see, not all stars are created equal. Some very bright stars are prominent in your field of view on a moonless night, and they shine steadily. Darker stars might seem to waver or "twinkle" as their light is deflected by rising air currents. Still others might seem to throb. Darker or more distant stars might only be discerned as a sort of powder in the sky, brightening the heavens. So finding the perfect verb for the sentence troubled me. I didn’t want to write multiple sentences. I was hoping to hit the reader with the image instantly. Furthermore, since I edit syllabically, cutting out as many syllables as I can, I wanted my verb to be a single syllable if possible. "Glimmered" was too long.
Suddenly I realized that I could solve all of my problems by just cutting the verb altogether: "Ten thousand stars in a moonless sky." It seemed like a reasonable solution.
Of course, when it came to the critique, many in my reading group said, "Uh, Dave, you forgot to put a verb in this sentence!" But the poets in the group got it. I remember that Virginia Baker (author of the paranormal thriller JACK KNIFE), simply wrote the word "Perfect!" in the margin.
So it’s good to remember that you can often create stronger images without using complete sentences than if you do. As an imagistic technique, it can be very powerful and economical, allowing you to create a fragmented effect. For example, you might describe a murder scene like this:
"Pools of blood beneath Cindy’s head.
Red hair floating in gore.
Her pretty mouth wide in an eternal scream."
However, I tend to use the technique sparingly. If you overuse it, your prose will become very dense, very compact, and the reader might feel a bit overwhelmed.
Also, if you’re narrating the story in the voice of a character who frequently uses incomplete sentences, that’s a great tool, and can go a long way toward making your character sound natural. Here’s an example:
"Don’t know ‘bout this
