McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Problem with passive verbs
HouseWren:
--- Quote from: Daoine on April 12, 2007, 02:21:39 PM ---what about these guys, because this drives me crazy.
"There was a shocked and sudden silence as he met her eyes. Thirty years ago, she had had an encounter with his father, in which her uncle's best man had been mortally wounded....etc etc."
what's the cure for that?
--- End quote ---
The computer is just freaking because you have the same word twice in a row. Grammatically, "she had had an encounter" is correct for an action that started and stopped in the past (thirty years ago) before the past in which "he met her eyes." Personally, I'd be more worried about the comma between "father" and the clause beginning "in which." If the clause is restrictive, and I think it is, you don't need it.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Daoine on April 12, 2007, 02:21:39 PM ---what about these guys, because this drives me crazy.
"There was a shocked and sudden silence as he met her eyes. Thirty years ago, she had had an encounter with his father, in which her uncle's best man had been mortally wounded....etc etc."
what's the cure for that?
--- End quote ---
What exactly strikes you as the problem with it ? That is perfectly grammatically correct, it's just that English does not use the pluperfect enough for the forms to have smoothed out much in that particular case. I'd keep it. Or rather, most of the workable ways of changing it I can see also change the distance of the POV, for example a closer-focus third that's inside POV character's head enough that sentence fragments for rushing thoughts are OK:
"The sound seemed to fade as he met her eyes. It all came rushing back. His father, thirty years ago. Her uncle's best man lying bleeding on the ground.. "
( When I look at the subsequent comments, I find myself thinking "CynDe, where Daoine had had 'had had', had had 'had'. 'Had had' had had neurovore's approval." Don't try sentences like this at home. )
King of De Nile:
--- Quote from: neurovore on April 12, 2007, 06:51:13 PM ---( When I look at the subsequent comments, I find myself thinking "CynDe, where Daoine had had 'had had', had had 'had'. 'Had had' had had neurovore's approval." Don't try sentences like this at home. )
--- End quote ---
Thank you, I think that just shut my brain down for the rest of the day... ;)
*Lady Disappearing Act *:
that was...super helpful
;)
i think too many elementary school teachers yelled at me about it; now it always looks BAD to me. like the fourth grade teacher who yelled at me because i insisted that guard was spelled G-U-A-R-D and not G-A-U-R-D. ever since, i have had (oh yes i DID just use the passive) a mental struggle over which spelling is correct. :'(
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Daoine on April 12, 2007, 08:24:04 PM ---that was...super helpful
--- End quote ---
I do my not-particularly-humble best.
--- Quote ---i think too many elementary school teachers yelled at me about it; now it always looks BAD to me. like the fourth grade teacher who yelled at me because i insisted that guard was spelled G-U-A-R-D and not G-A-U-R-D. ever since, i have had (oh yes i DID just use the passive) a mental struggle over which spelling is correct. :'(
--- End quote ---
I know the feeling; the word that always gets me like that is dispatch/despatch. In a sane universe one of those would mean a message carried by a fast rider, and the other would mean to kill someone, but it seems both of them get used for both meanings and neither spelling now looks right to me.
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