Co-ordinating Conjunctions - Use Them to Your Advantage


There is a lot of mixed advice about using co-ordinating conjunctions such as ‘and’, but’, ‘or’, ‘so’, and ‘yet’ etc. Some people advise against their use in writing, while others advocate it. What advice should you follow? Which one is right?
The simple truth is that there is absolutely nothing wrong using co-ordinating conjunctions to start a sentence. This writing myth may have evolved around rigid schoolteachers who taught children that such sentence constructions were not grammatically correct and thus perpetuated the idea that it’s wrong to use them. But it isn’t wrong.
That’s because writing is all about balance rather than ‘right or wrongs’. For example, the general advice about adverbs is to cut down on their use and use nouns and verbs to strengthen your narrative. That doesn’t mean that every adverb must be eradicated. It just means to cut back on them to make the writing better. The same is true for adjective use or passive sentences etc. So there is no reason why conjunctions shouldn’t be used, especially as they have their uses.
By using ‘and’ or ‘yet’ to start a sentence, for instance, you can make the reader pause for a split second before reading the rest of the sentence.  They can also create a sense of atmosphere or drama or provide some inflection. For example, compare the following sentences.
The tick of the clock grew louder as she stood in the shadows, even though she knew her mind had played tricks. The darkness in her eyes changed from grey to black.
The sound stopped and the silence rushed in.
Although there is nothing wrong with the sentence structure – it provides mood and tension within the narrative – the tone can be altered slightly by using a co-ordinating conjunction or two, for example:
The tick of the clock grew louder as she stood in the shadows, even though she knew her mind had played tricks. The darkness in her eyes changed from grey to black.
But then the sound stopped. And the silence rushed in.
It’s so subtle, it would be easy to miss, but the sentence now forces the reader to linger over the words ‘but’ and ‘and’, because of the pause, which then provides the narrative with some emphasis and makes them more interesting to the reader.
And that’s why writers use them. They can emphasise not just certain words, but whole sentences within the narrative. At the beginning of the first sentence in this paragraph, I’ve use ‘and’ to emphasise the point. It wouldn’t have been quite the same if it had not been used.
There are seven co-ordinating conjunctions to choose:

  • For
  • And
  • Nor
  • But
  • Or
  • Yet
  • So
Emphasise and accentuate tone, atmosphere and drama whenever you can, so use co-ordinating conjunctions to your advantage and change flat sentences into interesting ones. That doesn’t mean you should start every sentence this way, but like everything in fiction writing, it’s all about striking a balance between all the elements.

Well placed co-ordinating conjunctions make the reader pause for a brief second. They emphasise certain sentences and provide nuance and tone. They can make flat narrative appear interesting.  Clever use can create a sense of atmosphere and mood.
So, can you make your narrative interesting?
Or not?
Try using them more, and you’ll see just how they change the narrative.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapter & Novel Lengths

Just how long should a chapter be? What’s the best length? And does a novel have to fit into a set amount of words? These are just two of the most common questions asked by writers.   They assume they have to work to a strict template of X amount of words and X amount of chapters, usually because most novels have around 30 or 40 chapters and around 80,000 words.   Novel Lengths Firstly, let’s dispel a few myths - novel lengths are dictated by the story itself, not the writer or the editor or a specific written formula.   Secondly, writers don’t have to fit their word count into generic set amounts.   Again, the story will dictate how long the novel will be. It’s also worth knowing the different types of novels that work well with different word counts.   Uncomplicated stories containing minimal characters tend to be short – usually around 20,000 to 60,000 words.   These are called novellas. Longer, more complex stories, which contain a handful of main characters and periphe
Read more

What Makes a Story Dark?

If you’re a horror writer or you love to write dark, psychological stories and thrillers, or moralistic tales, this is the one question that needs an answer. Wanting a dark story and writing one are two different things, so how do you actually make a story dark? To answer that you first have to understand what is meant by ‘dark’. We usually define ‘dark’ as quantifiable elements that we know and are familiar with, but it’s more than that. Dark doesn’t necessarily mean scary or gory with a crazy psychopath going around chopping people into bits. Instead we have to think of ‘dark ‘as anything outside our accepted rose-tinted reality. Dark is the underbelly of our society; it’s the handling of ideas, themes, social issues and behaviours that would be seen as morally unacceptable. It’s less about fictional monsters but more about the real monsters that lurk in the shadows, something that is underscored by our fears and anxieties. It’s the unknown, because the things we don’t know
Read more

Cadence in Writing

Following on from last week’s article about purple prose, cadence – something many writers haven’t heard of – is something that writers aspire to but don’t always manage it, yet it’s the fundamental difference between poetic language and over-indulgent, flowery prose. Cadence in writing is a sense of rhythm and pace, it lifts the narrative from the page and makes it dynamic; brings a certain tempo to the words and sentences; it’s what makes prose poetic, layered and fluid without it being extravagant. Cadence makes the writing visual and evocative, and to an extent, beautiful . It’s an important element in fiction writing, because without it, narrative certainly won’t be as effective. Writers don’t actively think about cadence – they simply want to write and get the words down. It’s not until later, while editing, that they realise that a sense of rhythm might be missing from their narrative. When poetic description works, it’s called cadence. When it doesn’t work, people ref
Read more