i agree with madhoca' examples on this... they are correct in re what the op wanted to say... arguing assorted other issues only muddies the water, imo...
you could always write 'A cold wind blew down from the mountain.' That way you could eliminate is and was, and it covers both past and present tense. 'A cold wind blew down from the mountain.' I shivered and went into the cabin. 'A cold wind blew down from the mountain that day' My father likes to say, 'They give the house character' and in truth, he is correct. would be my choice, but then I'm British.
No comma after character (which would be outside, obviously)? And strictly speaking: there is a difference between past progressive (was blowing) and past simple (blew). I don't think it's that important though, but I just thought, let's throw it in. This thread hasn't received enough attention, apparently.
Just when I thought I had it figured out, I ran into this during one of my edit sessions: (Again, this is an example, not a direct pull from my book.) "You are not out of bed!" said my brother as he was continuing to slap me in the face. Does "was" make sense here at all? Or would this be better: "You are not out of bed!" said my brother as he continued to slap me in the face.
I think that that's a UK/US difference. Yes, it can be implied, but UK usage would be fairly resistant to leaving it to implication. Feel free to drop it; the example avoids the problem either way.
No comma after character (which would be outside, obviously)? yes, I forgot to put it in. As for "You are not out of bed!" said my brother as he was continuing to slap me in the face. That's awful - was's and ings are best kept to a minimum. Try "You are not out of bed!" My brother said as he continued to slap my face. said coming after the name sounds better.
I don't think was's and ings are best kept to a minimum, but they were the wrong tools for that job. Lower case "m" on "my", by the way: "You are not out of bed!" my brother said as he continued to slap my face. Comma after "said"?
I agree with this, though I don't think it's strictly necessary to put quotation marks there. Okay - we are both speaking the English language - punctuation makes us pause in roughly the same way. And no, I am not an American aesthetic chauvinist. For example, I greatly prefer the British method of including end punctuation outside of quotation marks. Not to mention that Jhunter has stated that he is an American, and thus should probably err towards using the American convention. Fair enough.
The word "continued" in either of these suggest that the slapping started earlier in the passage. If the slapping is introduced with this sentence, then I think that it should be: "You are not out of bed!" said my brother, as he continually slapped me in the face. (or ", continually slapping me in the face." or ", slapping me repeatedly." or "slapping me over and over again.") ChickenFreak
Okay - I am not actually a ridiculous pedant in real life - but, since you're a writer, I feel the need to point out that the correct phrase is "should have," not "should of."
In that case it would normally be "as he continued to slap me", "as he carried on slapping me", "as he kept slapping me" or some such. You probably don't need "on the face" as that will already be established. And I said "normally" because it's the narrator's voice, so if your narrator is, for example, not a native English speaker then all bets are off. For what it's worth, of the three alternatives I've suggested, "continued" seems to me to be quite formal, the sort of think an old-school academic might say. "kept" seems to me to be what an "ordinary" person might say, and "carried on" somewhere in-between.
yes, a comma is needed after 'said'... that said, 'as' phrases tacked onto dialog tags are generally considered poor writing... and they often don't make sense, since the action following 'as' can't all be taking place in the brief time it takes for the character to speak the line of dialog... overuse and misuse of 'as' is one of the most common annoyances in new writers' work and is at the top of the list of things i have to correct in newbies' work... so, using it when you mean 'at the same time as' or 'while' should be avoided as much as possible, as it's too easy to use it incorrectly...
I think they're generally considered poor writing because they often don't make sense (in fact, you say the same further down). In this case there's no such problem because a person can talk and slap at the same time. I wouldn't fault this one.
Yeah, haha, that is actually my biggest fault. I tend to write like I talk. Which is almost always wrong. Luckily I catch it when I edit. ---------- Post added at 10:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:42 AM ---------- Thanks again for all the help guys/gals!
If I am understanding this correctly, you are telling me to use "at the same time" or "while" instead of "as"?
no, i'm not... just pointing out that this particular use of 'as' leads more often to inaccuracy and confusion, than to clarity... though you certainly could use one of those, if they're accurate... but it's best to not glue two actions together with 'as'... or tack an action onto a 'he/she said' dialog tag...
Ah, ok, I get it now. Thanks for the tip. I will go back and re-write the couple dialogue I have with "as he"
