Something's Missing

Deut. 15: [13] And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:

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Did you ever get the feeling that there is something missing in your life? Have you ever read an incomplete sentence and wondered, “What’s missing?”

I’ve been reading lately about modifiers, clauses, conjunctive something or other and cumulative what’s its. Does any of that make sense? I didn’t think so, there is something missing. Oh, natural flow and form.

I form a sentence with no thought in mind of how it is structured, or if I’ve placed the modifier there, is the adjective where it is suppose to be, the verb, oh dear, how about the noun? There just seems to be an empty space there when I do that.

I’m a writer and what I write is off the top of my head as I think a thought. There we go, maybe I shouldn’t be studying about the sentence and its structure, maybe I should be thinking about the way I write and speak.

I love philosophy and I can learn a lot about writing from the great philosophers, just as much as the great writing teachers of the world. But I can not grasp the concept of dissecting my writing, cutting it down and picking out a conjunctive clause. A generative what, an aural what? Others may remember independent and dependent clauses, prepositional phrases, and how to diagram them, but not me. This is not me!

If you want to be a writer, this is what is in your arsenal of language and writing skills, but again, there is something missing. A point to be made? I’m missing the point.

You mean to tell me if I can get all of this crammed into my brain, it will make me a better writer? If I practice these skills, will my words become aural and not verbal? Will I then take people down a yellow brick road and deliver them to the great and all powerful Oz?

What?

Oz was nothing but some short man hiding behind a curtain, threatening the dickens out of innocent people and a DOG! Why would I do that? Lead you to the Wizard of Oz? I’ll tell you why. If you remember, Oz led Dorothy home. She had many a conflict, abounded in aromas, poetic muse filled the screen with a play on words, prose and otherwise. I remember the screen going from black and white, to vivid color!

I get it now! Your writing will go from dreary black and white to being full of color and magic and with all of this new arsenal in your backpack of writing skills, you too, can bring home what you were missing all along, the point!

Run-on or Cumulative

Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. ~Abigail Adams

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A run on sentence can go on for what seems a long time, never really saying anything.
What makes up a run on sentence?

When a person ends a sentence to quick, it is considered a fragment.

Johnny went.

Where did Johnny go?

Look at the following sentence.
I saw a teacher who cares.
 
The author of this sentence may have wanted to write:
I saw a teacher. Who cares? A complete sentence followed by a question.
 
Using periods (and other forms of punctuation) and knowing when to end a sentence are very important. If you don't end a sentence appropriately, the intended meaning can be changed, or it can be misunderstood. Sometimes the meaning is simply incomprehensible.
 
When a person learns to write English sentences and compositions, one common problem is writing sentences that are too long. When a sentence ends too quickly, it is called a sentence fragment. When a sentence has too many ideas and runs on too long, it is called a run-on sentence. If you have this problem, don't worry. It is quite easy to fix.
 
The first thing you need to do is identify when a sentence is a run-on. A run-on is a sentence that really has TWO sentences (or complete ideas) INCORRECTLY combined into one. It is okay to combine two sentences into one, but you must follow some rules.
 
You might be wondering: "What is a sentence?" A sentence consists of 3 things:
 
1) a subject (the noun or proper noun that is performing the action.)
 
2) a verb (that would be the action)
 
3) a complete idea (we’re not left waiting to read another word. It is complete)
 
The run on is not a complete idea. Too many words later you realize there is no complete thought in the sentence turned paragraph.
 
Timmy went to the store for his mother and bought a loaf of bread and he came back home and got ready for the dance that evening and then he felt queasy because he was unsure if his date would really like him and he passed out.
 
There is really a complete idea here with:  Timmy went to the store for his mom.
 
A cumulative sentence has a different meaning.
 
An independent clause  followed by a series of subordinate constructions (phrases  or clauses that gather details about a person, place, event, or idea. It gathers. The sentence doesn’t run on and on.  It is building into a complete a sentence; a complete thought.
 
To me, a writer, this seems like both the sentences are the same, but with further study they are different in the flow and fluid feel when they come from your lips.
 
If you read out loud, (and I advise everyone to do this with their work) or at least HEAR it spoken, you’ll see the difference in the sounds of the sentences.
 
Timmy, in his youth, went to the store one day to get him mom a loaf of bread, only to return and realize he had to get ready for the party of which he was unsure his date would like him.
 
Complete thought. Cumulative. It builds into a sentence and gives you a complete thought.

Now you try and practice. Take a kernel sentence like, Jane ran. Now run with it! Make it a cumulative sentence and not a run-on!

Get to work writers!