Sentence fragments. What are they? Need a refresher? I’m here for you. It all has to do with commas.
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Commas! I’ve heard you just put them where you breathe, right?
Apparently, there is rhyme and reason to commas. In fact, Maren Bradley Anderson and I wrote a whole book about them – Commas: An Irreverent Primer.
I’ve always been one of those people who SUPER DOES NOT CARE about grammar. I learned most of my grammar through reading (studies show this is a good way to learn it). But I had to learn grammar in order to teach it, so here is a helpful thing I learned to get us started.
Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are phrases that are not complete sentences. They usually don’t have a subject or a verb. Every sentence needs a subject and a verb — somebody or something doing or being something.
Sentence fragments are cool when you sprinkle them through your stories, but not cool if they are all you’ve got.
Example: I ate the pie.
That’s a complete sentence. I is the subject. Ate is the verb.
Fragment: Ate the pie.
No subject. Who ate the pie?
If someone says you have a sentence fragment, just check your subject and your verb.
Drafting?
Quick note – if you are drafting, ignore those fragments! Write freely and happily. Don’t hold yourself back thinking about grammar or sentence length or the shape of your verbs. Just write your story — get it out of your head and onto the page. Sentence-level editing can come later. In fact, I don’t really think about this until I’m far into my third or fourth draft. Your early drafts are for the story. Just fall in love — don’t fall into a comma.
More Tips
For more writing tips, click here.
And, of course, Grammar Girl has a much more detailed, helpful post about sentence fragments here.