_:n71f344dc12904cd18f8b604ba9901f4cxb30
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"I'm a new fiction writer, and one of the hardest things I've found about writing is the constant advice about subject, verb, object, and not writing in the passive voice, though it is grammatically correct, just not preferred by editors. There are only so many ways to say \"John rode his bicycle to the store,\" without boredom setting in. I've found that using gerunds to start sentences allows you to get your point across in a structure that isn't repetitive. I agree with you that if you're going to use it, it must be grammatically correct, and your examples on how to use it are excellent. I have a little more leeway right now with my novel, which I am editing myself with two widely used grammatical programs. After I have done that, I'm going to hire a professional for editing and advice regarding a rewrite. \r\n\r\nAt present, I am writing a short story for a contest (1500 word maximum), and the grammatical programs I have at my disposal grouse about using sentences that start with gerunds, so I have been forced to modify those as you've suggested or have taken them out altogether. Three editors will be judging this contest and I suspect the \"rule\" you have referred to is probably going to be enforced since the main sponsor is a grammar program that is widely used by authors and it has \"the rule.\" \r\n\r\nI have three more days before submission and am going to order your book to see if I can pick up some last-minute pointers. I hope you're going to have a chapter on hyphenation. Editorial and grammatical programs use those frequently as well as the Oxford comma which I thought had fallen out of favor in most areas of literature (I'm an attorney by profession and neither are used in legal writing). I still cringe turning in hyphenated words I haven't hyphenated in years."
<https://kathyide.com/starting-sentences-with-ing-words/?replytocom=6214>