Conclusion to Word Groups

Here’s an excerpt from John Marsden’s Tomorrow, When the War Began. This novel (and the whole series) is an exciting action-adventure story with high stakes, unrelenting danger, thrilling victories, and terrible tragedies.

Read the snippet and see if you notice any distinctive grammar features that help create the voice and tone of the piece.

One thing you might notice is the use of fragments: short sentences with no verb.

The very first sentence is an example of this; it's nothing but three nouns:

Even out of context, we understand what this means: it’s a description of someone’s feelings, but given as a list of nouns.

You could use this idea if you wanted to communicate feelings in a terse and punchy way:

But you can also imply whole scenes and stories with just a few words:

And remember, not all the nouns need to be concrete things; they can be feelings, concepts, ideas, in any combination: