Toss a Frag

I am a video game junkie. Don’t let it cloud your perception of me–like maybe the reason why I so rarely blog here–but it’s true. (I rarely blog here because I’m writing pretty regularly here at lilfytr.com instead.) And as far as non-PC games (not politically correct mind you, but personal computer) games go, the first one I ever got into was Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

When you throw a frag grenade in that game, a voice will call out, “Tossing a frag,” and we all know what happens when a grenade goes off. Things get shook up.

In writing we can do a similar thing. I’ll never forget the English teacher that pointed this out to me my first year of college. “Fragments are frowned upon in K-12 because students need to know what constitutes a complete sentence. As writers though, fragments can be powerful.”

As readers it can get monotonous reading, “Subject, verb, direct object. Subject, verb. Adjective, subject, verb, prepositional phrase.” Instead, switch it up sometime. In the midst of the monotony, drop a one-word sentence. It will greatly shake up your writing and make it more interesting.

Really.

Comment some of your examples of using less than “proper” grammar below.

Happy writing!