# Order (Does it Matter)



## EmmaSohan (Oct 10, 2017)

> Insert Tab C into Slot C after first folding on Line 2.



Suppose those were part of the instructions for assembling something. Is there anything wrong with the fact that the order of presenting the instructions doesn't correspond to how they are to be performed?

One answer is no. You might be thinking, _No reader is going to get confused by that._ I can agree with that. If you think there's nothing wrong with that instruction, you can probably stop here (and comment).

And if you don't like those instructions, what about this?



> "Sorry I'm a little late, babe," he said after kissing me on the cheek.



This is from an actual book. You might say these are not instructions. But isn't writing just giving the reader instructions for constructing a world?

You might be thinking that variety is good, but is there a cost? As far as I know, the twisted order in the above was just for variety.

The problem is . . .


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## EmmaSohan (Oct 10, 2017)

Is dialogue ever out of order?



> "Sorry I'm a little late, babe," he said after saying, "Hey, you look great."



Really, authors usually present information in order of time. It is somewhat difficult to find authors presenting information in the wrong order. Maybe this:



> Itake a deep breath and count to ten. Backwards. Slowly.



The exception is dialogue tags. If it's an instruction for how the reader should read something, shouldn't it come before the dialogue? For that matter, if it just says who is talking, shouldn't it come first. (Unless the reader knows who is talking. Then it isn't needed.)

I get that "he said angrily" following the dialogue is useful for showing anger.

And if you want to argue that this isn't a problem -- I'm fine with you arguing that the original example wasn't a problem and it's okay to write instructions in the "wrong" order. No one is going to misunderstand them. But if you don't like that, then I don't see how you can like dialogue tags put in a useless position.



> Finally Cynthia says, "Good enough for me. I'll help."



Warning, the conventional advice is not to put dialogue tags at the front.


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## Jack of all trades (Oct 10, 2017)

Order matters.

In the case of instructions, most folks don't read ahead, so putting things in the proper order is necessary.

In the case of fiction, there's a bit of leeway. But an author who consistently puts things out of order will annoy me into abandoning the piece.

Personally, I do get things out of order while writing, but clean it up and put things in proper order during editing. So my advice is not to sweat it during the initial writing phase. Just fix it during editing. Time flows like a river. So should the action.

And the dialog tag thing is easily handled. "Yeah," he said. "It just takes putting something short, followed by the tag, followed by the rest of the dialog."


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## Kyle R (Oct 11, 2017)

I believe it's okay to have a few things out of order, chronologically speaking. As Terry alluded to in that other thread, most readers won't get confused by the sample line you posted. Most, in fact, wouldn't even notice the difference.

Also, people often speak out of order, too—so the act of "time-twisting" isn't that unusual.

Examples:

"Man, I almost barfed after that ride!"
"I got all nostalgic when that song came on the radio."
"He, like, practically started _drooling_ once he saw me in that dress."

These kinds of "time-twists" happen in daily conversation all the time, and most of us don't even flinch at them. We tend to process the whole sentence in a single gulp, so the order doesn't really matter.

Writing-wise, you can even present things out of order intentionally, for effect, to create emphasis. Consider the following two sentences:

After that first dance, we fell in love.

We fell in love after that first dance.​
The first sentence is presented in correct chronological order. The second sentence is out of order. But while they each convey the same basic idea, they're also each emphasizing something different. The first sentence emphasizes _falling in love_. The second sentence emphasizes _that first dance_.

As the author, I'd rearrange that sentence so that it ended on the part that I wanted to emphasize—whether it was chronologically correct or not.

Now, I wouldn't want to present things out of order _all the time_, because then things might seem a bit jerky. Or worse: confusing for the reader. :grief:

But I wouldn't worry about a few lines here and there that present things out of order, especially if there's a purpose to it. :encouragement:


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## bdcharles (Oct 11, 2017)

I think messing with the order creates needless complexity, especially in short, workaday sentences. It can disrupt the flow of the prose if not done properly. In both the case of instructions and fiction, you want to feel that you are in good hands, that you don't need to second guess or work out (unless you like doing that) because it either suspends the fiction or the confidence in the product. If one can avoid having that kind of rough edge, then why would one not do so?



> Insert Tab C into Slot C after first folding on Line 2.


- this would irritate me because it makes two steps (fold on line 2, and insert tab c into slot c) into three (process instruction, fold line, insert tab _(EDIT: through no intention, I even got this wording wrong just now)_ ). It's not smooth and the reasons why would nag at me. Is the designer not telling me something? Is there a flaw? What is the significance of this wording?



> "Sorry I'm a little late, babe," he said after kissing me on the cheek.


- this would irk me if it is in straight narration because it is a bit like thinking a character has blonde hair only to find in chapter 15 that it is black. It just compromises smooth presentation of the world. And why? If however it is part of voice (or dialogue, as Kyle said) then that is ok. But as this is, it's clunky and "sounds like writing". I become aware of it, rather than seeing the movement. Why not:



> He kissed me on the cheek. "Sorry I'm a little late, babe."


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## Terry D (Oct 11, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> Suppose those were part of the instructions for assembling something. Is there anything wrong with the fact that the order of presenting the instructions doesn't correspond to how they are to be performed?
> 
> One answer is no. You might be thinking, _No reader is going to get confused by that._ I can agree with that. If you think there's nothing wrong with that instruction, you can probably stop here (and comment).
> 
> ...



Apples and oranges. Assembly instructions are written to convey a specific sequence of steps required to complete a task as efficiently and with the least amount of confusion possible. They are not written to entertain. Trust me on this, I've been writing complex work instructions for assembly procedures in a manufacturing environment for more than 20 years. 

In our fiction we are not giving instructions on world building. We are building the world and then presenting it to our readers in the way we want them to see it. If we are going to concern ourselves with presenting our stories in an absolutely linear fashion -- in the misguided assumption that our readers are too stupid to follow along -- then there would be no need for flashbacks, foreshadowing, or even the pluperfect tense. You are trying to complicate a simple stylistic choice every author makes and readers never notice.


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## Kevin (Oct 11, 2017)

If you want to build a popular hamburger follow the McDonald's instructions. Only popular hamburger is good. All rest are obscure-unknown and will be forever un-recognize.


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## JustRob (Oct 11, 2017)

Do people actually read entirely sequentially? The test is probably the ticker tape style text that appears along the bottom of some news broadcasts on TV. I find these difficult to read, not just because they force the reader to read at a prescribed speed but because they force the words to be read in order. For a long time I have been aware that I initially scan an entire page of text to identify its structure, e.g. paragraphs, quotation marks and such first, then type of content such as description or action. Once I also know which characters are represented, if any, and the extent of their involvement I can choose which parts of the page to read consciously. Even then I can't be sure that I read the page in order. I think this process occurs because I have had to find information in reference manuals far more often than reading stories, so reading sequentially has not been my ideal approach to any text.

One aspect of the order of reading that always amuses me is that we have to read numbers backwards, i.e. from right to left, because we adopted Arabic notation for them. In contrast Roman numerals were designed to be read from left to right to be consistent with the rest of their writing. Probably few people think about that when they are doing it because it happens automatically within the mind. I think a lot of other commonly needed processes do too, so such unusual orders don't matter so long as they don't span too much text. The problem in German of the participle of the verb coming right at the end of a sentence does tax people who do not have it as their first language, but one can quickly adapt to the idiosyncrasies of any language or its writers.


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## Jack of all trades (Oct 11, 2017)

Terry D said:


> Apples and oranges. Assembly instructions are written to convey a specific sequence of steps required to complete a task as efficiently and with the least amount of confusion possible. They are not written to entertain. Trust me on this, I've been writing complex work instructions for assembly procedures in a manufacturing environment for more than 20 years.
> 
> In our fiction we are not giving instructions on world building. We are building the world and then presenting it to our readers in the way we want them to see it. If we are going to concern ourselves with presenting our stories in an absolutely linear fashion -- in the misguided assumption that our readers are too stupid to follow along -- then there would be no need for flashbacks, foreshadowing, or even the pluperfect tense. You are trying to complicate a simple stylistic choice every author makes and readers never notice.



I agree that comparing instructions and fiction is comparing apples and oranges.

I also think this discussion is hyper focusing on a single, small detail.

I disagree with the idea that readers never notice. Of course they notice! Having characters walk through doors after they open the door -all the time- would annoy most readers. Flipping back and forth between the present and the past, without rhyme or reason, would be annoying. And so forth.

Readers are intelligent enough to put down a book that they feel they could have written better. Or at least not buy more written by that author.


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## Jack of all trades (Oct 11, 2017)

JustRob said:


> Do people actually read entirely sequentially? The test is probably the ticker tape style text that appears along the bottom of some news broadcasts on TV. I find these difficult to read, not just because they force the reader to read at a prescribed speed but because they force the words to be read in order. For a long time I have been aware that I initially scan an entire page of text to identify its structure, e.g. paragraphs, quotation marks and such first, then type of content such as description or action. Once I also know which characters are represented, if any, and the extent of their involvement I can choose which parts of the page to read consciously. Even then I can't be sure that I read the page in order. I think this process occurs because I have had to find information in reference manuals far more often than reading stories, so reading sequentially has not been my ideal approach to any text.
> 
> One aspect of the order of reading that always amuses me is that we have to read numbers backwards, i.e. from right to left, because we adopted Arabic notation for them. In contrast Roman numerals were designed to be read from left to right to be consistent with the rest of their writing. Probably few people think about that when they are doing it because it happens automatically within the mind. I think a lot of other commonly needed processes do too, so such unusual orders don't matter so long as they don't span too much text. The problem in German of the participle of the verb coming right at the end of a sentence does tax people who do not have it as their first language, but one can quickly adapt to the idiosyncrasies of any language or its writers.



I don't follow the comment about the numbers.

1,492 is said one thousand, four hundred and ninety two. How is that backwards?


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## Terry D (Oct 11, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> I disagree with the idea that readers never notice. Of course they notice! Having characters walk through doors after they open the door -all the time- would annoy most readers. Flipping back and forth between the present and the past, without rhyme or reason, would be annoying. And so forth.
> 
> Readers are intelligent enough to put down a book that they feel they could have written better. Or at least not buy more written by that author.



I agree that readers will notice when the technique is applied poorly, but that can be said for anything about writing. If commas are used poorly readers will notice, if scene changes are done poorly readers will notice, so we strive to do them well. My point is -- much like yours above -- the technique is so common, and so commonly done well, that readers don't notice.


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## EmmaSohan (Oct 11, 2017)

I like your idea, Kyle, but I question the actual examples. "That" as a determiner implies that something has already been talked about. All of your examples contain "that".



Kyle R said:


> "Man, I almost barfed after that ride!"
> "I got all nostalgic when that song came on the radio."
> "He, like, practically started _drooling_ once he saw me in that dress."
> After that first dance, we fell in love.
> We fell in love after that first dance.


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## Jack of all trades (Oct 12, 2017)

Terry D said:


> I agree that readers will notice when the technique is applied poorly, but that can be said for anything about writing. If commas are used poorly readers will notice, if scene changes are done poorly readers will notice, so we strive to do them well. My point is -- much like yours above -- the technique is so common, and so commonly done well, that readers don't notice.



Not so commonly done well in the novice arena. And not always done well in the traditionally published world, either.

I think a discussion on how to do it well is warranted.


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## JustRob (Oct 12, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> I don't follow the comment about the numbers.
> 
> 1,492 is said one thousand, four hundred and ninety two. How is that backwards?



Because you don't know whether to say "one thousand" or "one million" until you reach the end, so you must have read all of it and worked backwards to find out how big the number was. In fact 1,492... could actually be "one trillion, four hundred and ninety two billion ..." if someone has spilt coffee on the rest and it is illegible. 

Compare this "positional notation" to Roman numerals. We know that "MM" is two thousand without having to read what follows. Their numbers could be mangled in order somewhat though, so instead of "nine being written "VIIII" it would be written "IX", literally "one less than ten", so even here the equivalent words are in the same order as the symbols.

 Computers in particular have problems with this because they are fundamentally pedantic and expect data to be presented to them in the order that they are expected to process it. Consequently they have to work out what is a number and what words to decide which way to do things. 

Currency symbols mix up the order even more. For example, £10.75 is spoken "ten pounds seventy five", so the reader's brain is jumping backwards and forwards to carry out the translation from text to speech. 

We reverse the order of the digits even for numbers written as words sometimes. "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie" is a traditional example, which is in fact the normal way that a German would speak 24 ("vier und zwanzig"). That same German would speak 124 as "ein hundert vier und zwanzig", mentally jumping to and fro along the digits, which is as distinct a way of working as the way that Americans write and speak dates.

So, returning to my original statement about reading numbers backwards, £24 is "four and twenty pounds" but we choose to speak the words in a different order from that nowadays, having become more mentally agile. Equally, when reading text we are capable of rearranging the phrases to give ourselves a clear mental picture of the chronological order of events, regardless of their written order.


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## Terry D (Oct 12, 2017)

Jack of all trades said:


> Not so commonly done well in the novice arena. And not always done well in the traditionally published world, either.
> 
> I think a discussion on how to do it well is warranted.



You are 100% correct, there can be value in discussing just about any aspect of writing. I tend to drag my heels some when those discussions start to get too focused on minute details, and when folks start creating labels for stylistic choices which don't need labeling. What this entire thread boils down to, IMO, is word choice and sentence structure. I'd hate to see some new writer read this and start thinking, "Okay, I want Tom to walk into the room, pour himself a drink, chug it, and then throw the glass across the room, shattering it against the fireplace. Do I employ a 'time twist' when he pours his drink? _Tom poured himself a drink and chugged it after walking into the room_. Or do I 'time twist' the thrown glass? _Tom walked into the room, poured himself a drink, and then threw the glass against the fireplace stones when he was finished_. I don't want them getting hung up on trivia when the real decisions are how best to make the scene clear, interesting, and to develop their own style. Because that's what we are really talking about here are the word and structure choices which end up creating the writer's voice. Loading down the discussion -- and the thinking process -- with pedantic concepts like 'time twisting' can, again IMO, prevent the writer from focusing on what's really important; the pace, flow, and sound of the language.

_Tom walked into the parlor and poured himself a Scotch, drank it in one gulp, and threw the glass across the room, shattering it against the field-stone mantle of the fireplace._ (The writer chose not to confuse his readers with a 'time twist' and is very satisfied with his linear story)

_Tom poured himself a Scotch after stomping into the parlor, took it down in one gulp, and then threw the glass against the fireplace, shattering the crystal into a thousand glimmering shards._ (Being a daring sort, our writer friend decided to employ a TT, but, upon edit, he realized it's not the TT that makes the sentence stronger, it's the more vivid language)

Emboldened by his realization that there are more important things to worry about in any given scene than the order in which the events are presented, our rookie writer really lets go:

_Still furious, Tom stood looking down at the crystal shards glimmering on the hearth like a thousand stars spread across a stone-gray night sky. He couldn't remember entering the room, or throwing the glass, nor even pouring the drink, though he knew all these things had occurred because the malty taste of oak still lingered on his tongue, and muddy boot-prints marked his path from the parlor door to the decanter and to where he stood now simmering in the heat of the dying fire._

Writers should focus on producing clear, vivid (my example above is nearly lurid rather than vivid, but it is, after all just an example:friendly_wink, and interesting prose. Not on artificially named 'techniques'. Linear works. An inverted structure works. Do either -- or anything else -- too much and it will stop working.


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## EmmaSohan (Oct 12, 2017)

Terry, at times in this thread I thought you were saying that if a sentence doesn't have any noticeable problems, it's fine. But that can't be right.

Or, unless the reader actually misunderstands something, or has some noticeable difficulty, there is no problem. But that can't be right.

You can't even believe those, right?

That leaves the writer looking for problems that the writer doesn't notice. Intuition is great. But consciously knowing about the problem will help most people. Me just pointing out the issue might help.

Here, time-twisting a simple concept. It's easy to notice. I have no idea how much of a problem it is, but it seems like it might be some problem. If a writer notices, the writer could think about changing it (intuition and feelings). And that relates to what you think your reader is doing. Are you building a world and then just informing the reader, or did you want the reader to build that same world and live in it?



> The news of my father's second and final death arrives by FedEx. I push open the front door .,,



And about a half-paragraph later she sees a Fedex package. A half page later she opens it. I was confused.


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## Kyle X Lehr (Oct 13, 2017)

A developed writing ear instructs. But bad writing habits by writers themselves interrupt the instruction. - Kyle X


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## Kyle R (Oct 13, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> The news of my father's second and final death arrives by FedEx. I push open the front door .,,
> 
> And about a half-paragraph later she sees a Fedex package. A half page later she opens it. I was confused.



Might help if we look at the full excerpt. I found it here:
The news of my father's second and final death arrives by FedEx.

I push open the front door and the smell of Sal's garlic marinara hits me in the face. "That smells amazing!" I call as I kick off my shoes in the entryway. I'm lucky: my husband gets off work by four o'clock every day and he likes to cook. Sal sticks his head out of the kitchen and waves, a wooden spoon in his mouth. His dark hair's covered by a blue bandana.

Lily sits on the couch with her skinny legs tucked to her chest, arms folded around her knees. My origami daughter. A long rectangular box lies between her and the curled-up cat. As he's aged, Bagel's fur has turned dark brown in spots, causing him to look more like a cinnamon roll every year. He flutters his eyes and goes back to sleep, unimpressed by my return.

"From Japan," Lily says, freeing her hands and picking up the box. She shakes it the way we do at Christmas and birthdays. "Papers and something long. Like, a ginormous chopstick. Dad wouldn't let me open it. What'd you order?"

My appetite disappears like it's been vacuumed out.
_
—Pull Me Under_, Kelly Luce​
Honestly? It looks to me like "I push open the front door and the smell of Sal's garlic marinara hits me in the face" was the original first line of the story. Then, in the editing phase, the author decided that pushing open a door and smelling food isn't exactly a very strong hook. So they found the purpose of the scene (news of her father's death arriving via FedEx), and turned that into the opening line.

It's out of order, yes, but it does the job of creating questions in the reader's mind: How did her father die? What does she mean by "second and final death"? Why FedEx?

The reader then (hopefully) continues reading, eager to find the answers to the questions that the hook generated.

Then, when the reader finally reaches the part about the package, they think, _Ah. H__ere's that package the first sentence was talking about_.

It might seem a little off, probably because the author is presenting information out of order, _and_ using the present tense. (Had this been in past tense, the out-of-order presentation would be more logical, as the narrator would be describing things from an after-it-happened position).

But I imagine most readers would forgive and/or forget the leap in chronology by the end of the first page. Some might even enjoy it.

Chuck Palahniuk likes to use the present tense to describe things out of order. Consider his first line of _Fight Club_:
Tyler gets me a job as a waiter, after that Tyler's pushing a gun in my mouth and saying, the first step to eternal life is you have to die.​
We enter the story in _media res_, at a moment that doesn't actually happen until much further in the book. Then the narrator goes back in time in the following chapter, while still in present tense.

"How can this be?" we might ask. Isn't present tense the "now" of things? Well, yes. But at the same time, fiction is an art-form. It doesn't _have_ to be bound by the laws of physics, or even time. Just as a painter doesn't _have_ to present their subject in a photorealistic manner.

It's okay to break rules if you have a purpose in mind. _Effect_ is usually the reason for breaking chronology.

You don't have to write that way, of course. There are a lot of successful authors whose approaches I, personally, wouldn't use. If skipping around in time doesn't work for you, as a writer, then don't skip around in time. Simple.

But it might be worth toying with, as an exercise, to see if there's anything in the technique that you might want to use at some future point. :encouragement:


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## Terry D (Oct 13, 2017)

^ Nailed it as usual, Kyle.


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## Terry D (Oct 13, 2017)

EmmaSohan said:


> Terry, at times in this thread I thought you were saying that if a sentence doesn't have any noticeable problems, it's fine. But that can't be right.
> 
> Or, unless the reader actually misunderstands something, or has some noticeable difficulty, there is no problem. But that can't be right.



Why can't that be right? Any technique a writer chooses is valid, _if it works for that story_. If it doesn't work it's wrong.



> You can't even believe those, right?
> 
> That leaves the writer looking for problems that the writer doesn't notice. Intuition is great. But consciously knowing about the problem will help most people. Me just pointing out the issue might help.



The writer damned well better notice structural issues at some point in the original writing, or during the revision process. Of course some issues slip by and get caught (hopefully) by editors, but those should be rare and minor. You seem to be saying that the use of an inverted structure is wrong. I'm just saying it's not if used with purpose and skill.



> Here, time-twisting a simple concept. It's easy to notice. I have no idea how much of a problem it is, but it seems like it might be some problem. If a writer notices, the writer could think about changing it (intuition and feelings). And that relates to what you think your reader is doing. Are you building a world and then just informing the reader, or did you want the reader to build that same world and live in it?



It is simple, and often nearly invisible. And it's not a problem at all if used correctly (like any other writing technique). The writer and the reader have an unspoken contract. The writer says, "I'm going to tell you a pack of lies now, but I'm going to do it in a way that will be very entertaining." The reader says, "Okay. And I promise to pretend for a while that I believe your lies -- unless you tell them poorly."

As it says in my signature, the writer creates a new reality, but that reality doesn't belong only to him. Readers can accept or reject the reality created by the author, but they have no part in creating it.


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## EmmaSohan (Oct 13, 2017)

Hi Kyle. First, I was confused by that passage. So this is not hypothetical. The book as a whole was surprisingly unengaging (except for one scene at the end). By that I mean that the content should have interested me a lot.

I don't know why it wasn't as good as I hoped. I think Jay would pull out his hair on stopping the scene to explain; I am starting to see his point. (In a way "I'm lucky" is about her life, so it's a third or fourth reference in time -- we start with an event 5 minutes in the future, move to the present, discuss the past, and then summarize the her status as she entered the door.)

I am not saying the author is wrong, or that people shouldn't write that way. But I would not and do not. In order:



> I push open the front door, the smell of Sal's garlic marinara hits me in the face, I kick off my shoes in the entryway and see Lily sitting on the couch with her skinny legs tucked to her chest.
> 
> There's a package on the couch next to her. FedEx.
> 
> ...



And the *million dollar question*. Did I change the order? What causes her appetite to disappear? Because if it's caused by what Lily _says_, the line is twice as powerful it it comes immediately after that.

Or, if we can assume that the author is presenting the events in the order they occurred . . . oh, we can't do that. Readers aren't going to stop and reorder the events anyway.


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## Lucid Being (Apr 1, 2018)

Order is all up the beholder I reckon. We all categorise differently, prioritise differently and visualise differently, this is what makes character and personalities so special and unique. Keep mixing it up. This'll also keep them on their toes so to speak. Ash


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## Patrick (Apr 27, 2018)

Emma, I think you spend far too much time faffing about. All the sentences you've presented are probably some of the least interesting in the book you've read, and you're fussing over the order of their construction. These sentences have far bigger issues if one wants to analyse them forensically. The author proably didn't give any conscious thought to the order of such a simple sentence, and perhaps they were wrong not to reverse the order, but on the list of priorties any writer has, I'd say most of the things you highlight for criticism rank somewhere near the bottom. Don't mistake pedantry for good writing; the two have nothing to do with each other, and one pleases while the other is a waste of time and an irritant.


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