Sentence Structure Help

[literaturelover]

I need help structuring the following sentence:

If I could use one word to describe how this book made me feel, it would be: terrifying.

It just doesn't look or feel right. This is the sentence I want to use, just not sure about the comma and colon placement. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thank you.

[DATo]

The dominant emotion I experienced while reading this book was absolute terror.

[Fran]

Comma is fine but I'd lose the colon

[bookowlie]

I agree with Fran. The comma is correct (end of the "if" phrase), but I would delete the colon. Also, I would either put quotes around the word "terrifying" or use three dots (...) between be and terrifying -

it would be "terrifying"
OR
it would be...terrifying

[moderntimes]

My suggestion is this -- if a sentence seems awkward, then rewrite is best.

One word describes how I felt when reading this book: terrified.

Using the phrase "If I could use..." creates a detachment from the spirit of this strong statement. It puts things into past perfect or past tense which is less powerful than present tense. Tense is critical when setting the pace and rhythm of a sentence, paragraph, or chapter.

Use past tense to impart a slight detachment and slow the pace, present tense to create more urgency and directness. And use past perfect sparingly in modern fiction. It's okay for nonfiction but for fiction, especially genre fiction, it's a bit passe. Just my opinion.

[literaturelover]

Thanks for the input! I tend to overuse commas and have been called on it quite a bit. Now I'm a little jumpy

[DennisK]

Your use of the colon reminds me of Harper Lee's use of that punctuation. When reading her book, Go Set a Watchman, I was surprised by her frequent use of it. As an example:
“For another thing, flying home meant her father rising at three in the morning, driving a hundred miles to meet her in Mobile, and doing a full day's work afterwards: he was seventy-two now and this was no longer fair.”
I would have expected a semicolon or a period where she used a colon. I had no problem understanding her structure, so if it works …. it works! I have no problem understand your sentence. The colon, or dash, or a string of periods all lend an emphasis on the word “terrified” which I imagine you would want. Of course, this is simply my opinion.

[moderntimes]

Most of us were taught composition in accordance to the century-old Strunk & White, plus 19th century or early 20th century literature.

There are rules for formal composition, such as literate essays and writing created under the jurisdiction of professors who themselves were educated on 19th century literature. Which is fine for an essay or a formal piece.

But things have changed. Modern English literature, particularly fiction, and particularly genre fiction (fantasy, SF, romance, mystery, etc) has much less stipulative rules. I for example never never never use a semicolon. I think semicolons belong in a museum, ha ha. Instead I write 2 short sentences.

Don't forget that Harper Lee was essentially writing a 20th century novel using 19th century rules.

Regarding commas, they affect the rhythm and pacing of a paragraph or sentence. If you use more commas, the pacing is slowed down for more contemplative passages. Or if you omit commas, the pacing is more rapid for perhaps an action sequence.

Modern English fiction breaks all sorts of "ruies" -- you see one word paragraphs. One word sentences. And so on. Modifying English composition from the rigid rules and bending those rules is just one tool which the modern writer has. Use them sparingly and with focus, but you'll find that you can adjust the mood and rhythm of a paragraph by modifying the older formal rules.

[literaturelover]

Your use of the colon reminds me of Harper Lee's use of that punctuation. When reading her book, Go Set a Watchman, I was surprised by her frequent use of it. As an example:
“For another thing, flying home meant her father rising at three in the morning, driving a hundred miles to meet her in Mobile, and doing a full day's work afterwards: he was seventy-two now and this was no longer fair.”
I would have expected a semicolon or a period where she used a colon. I had no problem understanding her structure, so if it works …. it works! I have no problem understand your sentence. The colon, or dash, or a string of periods all lend an emphasis on the word “terrified” which I imagine you would want. Of course, this is simply my opinion.

I do enjoy being compared to an icon.
Unfortunately, my school was left with slim pickings when it came to English teachers. I spent my entire Junior High and High School either learning about Greek Gods (? haha WTF right) or helping the teacher plan her son's wedding. I managed to BS my way through college, but technical writing is giving me hell.
Thanks for the help everyone, I am really enjoying this community!

[moderntimes]

Tech writing is its own hell. I did that, among other things in the tech field, for years. Wrote an entire series of user manuals for a high-grade computer drafting & design software package, developed a set of field repair & maintenance manuals for oil drilling equipment, worked for years with "big oil" on deepwater offshore drilling and exploration / production specs, mostly environmental and safety regs, developed a whole set of manuals for operating a jackup rig for Hyundai Heavy Industries. That was of course translated from English into several languages, including Korean, Japanese (Kanji), and Vietnamese.

So yeah, I know tech writing.

[literaturelover]

I'm also influenced by Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde so when the critiques come back saying I'm too "Wordy" I want to yell, "I'm Southern and I like British and Irish Writers So I'm going to use lot's of words, some of them will be big ones!" haha so thanks for everything, everyone is making me smile and not making this such a headache

[stanley]

I can't add much to all the good advice you've already received. What interests me, though is your immediate feeling that there's something wrong with the sentence, though you're not sure what. I've had similar reactions to problematic wordings of my own. In my experience it's often a grammar/logic problem. One is uneasily aware of having written something that doesn't quite make sense. The sentence in question is one of those troublesome critters: If you examine the grammar of this sentence, the sentence asserts that it would be a terrifying experience for you to find one word that describes the effect of the book. This was not your intention, of course, and your readers did not take it as such, but literally "translated " this is what the sentence means. That said, the colon becomes especially problematic.

[moderntimes]

Good comments, stanley.

There's of course nothing wrong with the original sentence technically, which calls into mind the whole element of the English language and how writers can use it to create a certain movement.

I'm always reminded of how Shakespeare used the language, with a mixture of the romantic influence of Old French and the more abrupt rhythm of Anglo-Saxon. One sentence from Hamlet desribes this perfectly, when Hamlet is speaking to Yorick's skull (I may get this wrong because I'm quoting from memory but here it is)

"Go thou to my lady's chamber and bade her to paint an inch thick."

Hamlet is of course speaking of his mother and her marriage to Claudius. But look how he does it -- he uses the more "poetic" phrasing of one side of English -- Old French -- with the "go thou and "bade" and then he abruptly ends it with the sharp "inch thick" which refers to his mother's pretend romance to Claudius. And the quick single-syllable "inch thick" provides a great contrast.

Such are the vagaries and the great resources of modern English.

We, as modern writers, can use all this to effect a certain rhythm and texture to what we say. This is what makes a standard and rather boring exposition into a piece of linear poetry.

Many new writers, especially those of romances, may use "fluffy" speech and tend to write via 19th century structures. There's nothing wrong with this generically. But what may really create a sterling narrative is if the author mixes this with the more abbreative style of late 20th & 21st century style -- a blend of, if you will, Faulkner with Hemingway.

So the original post was of course not wrong at all. But what may have been missing would maybe be the rhythm and pacing which can be employed by a writer to create a sense of mood, whether short and abrupt or more sedate.

This is very tricky and believe me, in my 3 novels, I worked constantly to perfect. There are likely 30 ways for the original sentence to be written. Each of them however has a certain "feel" and this is something which a writer must strive for, the texture and rhythm of such.

[Goms]

Hi,
What about: 'If I could explain how this book made me fell, it would be - terror.
Note: The dash here is an em dash by the way. Hope this helps.

[moderntimes]

I think you meant "feel" not "fell".