Don't tend to post a whole lot of this sort of question, since I'm usually fairly confident with grammar that if it doesn't sound right, it isn't. Still, struggled with this one. Shouldn't be a particularly long thread unless anyone manages to scrape a debate out of it, but any help appreciated Here's what I wanted to say: This was the third night running that she had woke up sobbing. And here's what I imagine I should say (for grammar's sake): This was the third night running that she had woken up sobbing. But that sounds horrible. So here's the third "I could probably get away with this" version: This was the third night running that she woke up sobbing. Which is my best option? Or are there others that I haven't considered? Thanks everyone! Piper ETA: the sentence changed a little, but the three words in question are still the same. Thought I'd edit because I've found another problem with the sentence: Is having "running" and "sobbing" in the same sentence okay? I know some people have a problem with "ing" words in general, but having two in a sentence seems to read funny to me. Thanks!
This was the third night she had (a)woken sobbing...and...and... .. ? This third night she awoke sobbing again...and...and... .. ?
She awoke with the tears streaming to her pillow; and she counted the fingers on her hand: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - another night time convulsed in misery, and the motor of her washing machine hot from the endless cycles of bedding.
None of them are wrong. You have a phrasal (woke up) and also awake/awaken, which derive from two different bases (and then they have past tense and poetic forms). There's no rule that untangles this. There's two basic approaches. You can 1) play it by ear or 2) research the most common form with Google Ngrams. The ing-words can be overused, and it's wise to be concerned, but you really need to look at paragraphs and entire scenes to see if they're a problem. At the level of sentence, you get a rhetorical device called a homoioptoton (I misspelled this 10 times ). It repeats an ending form across phrases. It almost sounds like poetry. In fact, I would build off that and add a phrase that has a stressed rhythm: For three nights running she'd woken up sobbing her PILLow still DAMP with her TEARS. So you can be simple/direct or try to evoke more. They're both different flavors of the same idea, and which one works best depends on the surrounding sentences. There would probably be long sentences near the first one and short sentences near the second. Contrast holds sentence structures together. Voice, tone, and genre will also have a say. The last three nights she'd woke up sobbing. For three nights running she'd woken up sobbing, her pillow still damp with her tears. And there's variants with awoken/awakened/etc. that can also drop "up."
Thanks everyone for your suggestions, lots to consider. Not a huge fan of awakened/awoke but you've all given me plenty of options! Thanks again.
"It was the third day running Karen woke to find the pillow wet against her cheek. She was no stranger to damp pillows, her husband had been a mouth breather, after all. But her ex was just that: an ex. It was the third day running Karen woke to find that her eyes had been drooling in her sleep."
It probably sounds horrible to you because normally people would contract the "had" to "she'd" which gives it a different rhythm to if you said the "had" out loud in full. Personally, I wouldn't be against using "had woke" provided you're careful and distinct about it. I personally sometimes choose to use adjectives rather than adverbs in a sentence, when grammatically the adverb would be correct and should be used. I still don't. The rhythm of the sentence sounds better without the pesky -ly there and the meaning is not compromised. No one's ever complained and I've had a fair number of alpha and beta readers. But anyway, in this instance, I may just go with the third version you wrote without the "had" there at all. When I choose the adjective over adverb thing, these paragraphs are generally descriptive and deliberately slightly... artsy. They're supposed to sound pretty. In your case, it seems like a simple statement of fact or straight-forward action - not quite worth the change in cadence.
She woke. She was crying. She had woke crying the previous two days too- to the disappointment of her tutti-frutti lover ... thrice now, not twice. The number two, too common to her. It was 2pm, she was always too late to work. Her bowels moved, “Time for number two!”, she tooted, then shat the bed ... twice! Note: don’t ask ... I’m bored! Haha!
In journalism "that" seems to be a bad word, in literature not so much. Just saying I've seen this a lot and have written in both forms. I didn't mind the that used here, but it could depend on the larger context, and, of course, you wouldn't want to overdo it.
I agree. I mentioned it in the context of his sentence lead with.. This. For some reason, it struck me as wrong in a subjective sense. I’m still the grasshopper here, still learning.
Operatic The original sentence has no elegance whatsoever; it is irredeemable to all of the senses: it is joyless and funless, provides the creative and pictorial imagery of a stone, a read that joins an individual 'who had been crying for three days' - thank you very much I am invigorated, blob. ...certainly a writer's project, and never a reader's pleasure... so many other ways to write the words aside from the plod plod, plod that is potato..
