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Amy Einsohn’s The Copyeditor’s Handbook has some great examples of dangling participles:

“Although watched by 25.8 million viewers, the program’s ratings disappointed the advertisers.”

Because it was the program itself that had 25.8 million viewers, and not the ratings, as Einsohn points out, the sentence should read:

“Although the program was watched by 25.8 million viewers, the ratings disappointed the advertisers.”

(Honestly, I don’t even like the “was watched” coupled with “viewers” or depriving advertisers of agency. How about, “Although the program was seen by 25.8 million viewers, advertisers weren’t satisfied”? But that’s fodder for another post.)

Here’s another example, stealthier and more insidious:

“Despite the constant claims that we need more economic growth, there are limits on what growth can do for us.”

The problem with this sentence is that the “limits on what economic growth can do for us” exist entirely independently from “the constant claims that we need more growth.” Those limits on growth would be — in the world, real and palpable — even if there were no constant clamoring for growth. They are real but they don’t have ears. Yet here they’re arranged in an implied dialogue.

This might seem like pedantic quibbling. So what, someone might say; the point is clear enough. That “despite” is a real problem, though. Despite means “in spite of” or “without being affected by,” and thus the clause it kicks off must be modifying something that — logic dictates — can be affected. And there is no such thing in this sentence aside from “us.”

What or who could conceivably be affected? Who could do something despite something? Individuals, pundits, television talking heads. In fact, the sentence is so much more interesting corrected than it is flawed, because correcting it requires that we get specific, say who is doing what, perhaps even name names, maybe throw a punch that lands:

“There are limits to what economic growth can do for us, though you would not know it from Joe Blow’s constant clamoring for more.”

or

“Those who routinely claim that we need more economic growth ignore the brute fact that there are limits to what growth can do.”

or

“Claims that economic growth will solve our problems are made in willful defiance of the truth that economic growth can only accomplish so much.”

I realize now that I haven’t answered my original question of why so many people trip up on dangling participles. I don’t have an answer, unfortunately, but I suspect it’s because we like starting sentences with dependent clauses (whether we know that term or not), and think it makes us sound smart (which it can), but then we unconsciously shy away from our full intended meaning.

*The Copyeditor’s Handbook, Second Edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006)

In the realm of straight, not-funny-and-not-meant-to-be nonfiction writing, an editor might suggest you refrain from “showing your work” (in the math test sense). It’s the same principle. You can add both punch and intrigue to a text by cutting out the prefatory hemming and hawing you think is required.

From the announcement of Triple Canopy’s launch of TC Labs: “Text is not filler, and it is too often treated as such.”

“There are many things a storyteller must add and subtract to tell a good story.” —Lorrie Moore

“There are people whose interests and affections lie in the world of personality, to whom the whole of life is made up of people. Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer (whom I never met) was such a woman. Not thoughts, not idea, not religions, but people made the universe for her; and this gave her incommunicable, unimaginable access to people’s hearts. She held the keys of them, —thousands of keys to thousands of individuals, —and they each felt themselves to be understood when they met her; they felt as it were, in contact with the power that made them.” —John Jay Chapman on first female college president Alice Freeman Palmer

Editing matters because text is not filler, because good texts require rounds of adding and subtracting, and because editing not only shapes texts so that they’re more readily understood (by strangers), it’s also the experience of having one’s work understood and interrogated (by your editor) on a level rarely encountered on a daily basis, on a level that feels a few small degrees off spiritual. Real developmental editing cannot be done via algorithm and does not scale. It’s slow, inefficient and thus — in this era — practically radical.

If readers get answers to these questions by the end of the second paragraph, they feel trusted.

–seems obvious, but: a character must be trying to do something

–at heart of all narrative film: “Somebody wants something badly and is having difficulty getting it.” —Frank Daniel

–in a three-act structure, second act = immense pressure to change

–writing with the audience in mind ≠ pandering to the audience

–our interest in whether the protagonist gets what she or he wants is (usually) proportionate to that character’s interest in same

–the nature of the objective determines the audience

“What’s the conflict that will tell the story you want to tell?” —Walter Bernstein

“You always come into the scene at the last possible moment.” —William Goldman

–distinguish between conflicts and hassles

–attempts to fashion a story in order to present a philosophical position leads to cliches, so be careful

–supporting players don’t know they’re supporting players

–revelation (the audience knows something a character doesn’t) requires subsequent recognition by that character (or the audience feels robbed!)

“The writer must know what a character wants, consciously or unconsciously, and the writer must know what a character is in pursuit of at any given moment, even if the character is oblivious to it.”

Much of the above, incl. that last quote, appears in David Howard and Edward Mabley’s The Tools of Screenwriting: A Writer’s Guide to the Craft and Elements of a Screenplay. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1993.

UPDATE: A related thought: “The best advice I got in writing narrative non-fiction was to get my hero in trouble and keep him there.” —Deborah Blum

Function: noun

Date: 1809

: means, resources; specifically : the ability and means required to accomplish some task.

“Very tight and compelling—a really well-edited book.”

“A fabulous manuscript, beautifully written, brilliantly argued and illustrated.”

“I’ve worked on a number of first books, and this is easily among the best I’ve seen—well conceived, well researched, and well written. You’ve succeeded in making the text accessible and entertaining.”

And my favorite comment, addressed to me personally:

“You made manuscripts to be animated.” (English was not the writer’s first language. That’s where we came in.)

There are telltale signs in conversation, however, that you’re in a less than ideal author-editor relationship:

— His every question interrogates the ideas presented in your piece. This is done in the interest of prompting you to refine your argument. He’ll ask a series of questions in the manner of a college classroom discussion. This is not editing, but spinning wheels, or intellectual showmanship. A good editor knows the true text lies elsewhere, and tries to help you develop the original inspiration.

Not to mention that trapped in the above dynamic, you’ll soon find yourself operating as if answering all of your editors’ queries or objections — presumably arriving at an airtight argument — is what compels readers to keep reading. This is rarely the case. You may still wind up with terrible, lifeless prose, and a piece no one cares about.

— After talking to her, you feel misunderstood. A good editor’s conversation is curative and invigorating.

— He immediately presents a solution to every writing problem you’re facing. As if some knots don’t take a while to work out. (Some take weeks. Others take months.)

Of course, much of this last dynamic involves phrasing. A good editor will never be short on ideas for how to improve the work, but is more interested in the assist, not scoring the goal himself. So he’ll say something to the effect of Bear ____ in mind or Here’s one possibility.

It’s easier to get attention / entice someone to click on a link / appreciate your Tweet when contributing to a debate that’s already generated memes. Introducing a new topic and finding people who’ll love (and remember) you for it is harder.

n.b. Easier. Not always better. Much depends on execution.

PS. A corollary as it pertains to literature? Titles like Alain De Botton‘s brilliant, career-making How Proust Can Change Your Life or Karen Joy Fowler‘s The Jane Austen Book Club.