Participial Phrases: Part 3 of a series of 10 articles on common mistakes new authors make

Participial Phrases
Definition = phrases that begin with a verb ending in -ing

Examples:
1) He jumped over the guardrail, holding a gun.
2) Clutching the blanket, the toddler hid his face in the teddy bear.

Correction = While there is technically nothing wrong with participial phrases, they are often overused by new writers. Overuse of any technique will eventually make it stand out and readers will notice, which is never a good thing as it takes them out of the story.

The dreaded dangling participle = a participle "dangles" when it doesn't describe the closest noun.

Example: Looking at the picture, the scene reminded me of our vacation.
The nearest noun for the participial phrase to describe is "scene", but a scene can't look at the picture.

Correction = Looking at the picture, I remembered our vacation.

Why we should avoid participial phrases =
1) Overuse, as stated above. This will mark you as a novice writer.
2) Participial phrases, like the progressive tenses discussed in Part 2, are often used to show that two things happen at the same time. In the examples above, the man jumped while holding a gun and the toddler clutched the blanket while hiding his face. It is better to vary the way you show this and use participial phrases sparingly.
3) It's easy to create a dangling participle if not careful.