Author Madeline L'Engle, ______ to create a suspenseful tone that draws the reader in, begins her novel A Wrinkle in...

Let's begin by understanding the meaning of this sentence. We'll use our understanding of pause points and segment the sentence as shown - understanding and assimilating the meaning of each segment bit by bit!

Sentence Structure

• Author Madeline L'Engle,
• [?] to create a suspenseful tone
  • that draws the reader in,
• begins her novel A Wrinkle in Time
  • with descriptions of 'wraithlike shadows'
    • and 'the frenzied lashing of the wind.'

Understanding the Meaning

Let's start reading from the beginning:

The sentence is about:

• 'Author Madeline L'Engle'

This is where we have the blank:

• 'Author Madeline L'Engle, ______ to create a suspenseful tone that draws the reader in'

Let's look at the choices:

• looked
• looks
• is looking
• looking

These are all different forms of the same verb. To see what works here, let's read the rest of the sentence and understand what it's saying!

The sentence continues:

• 'begins her novel A Wrinkle in Time with descriptions of 'wraithlike shadows' and 'the frenzied lashing of the wind.''

So the complete sentence is telling us:

• L'Engle begins her novel with these dark, dramatic descriptions
• The reason or purpose for doing this is to create a suspenseful tone

Now, what do we notice about the structure here?

• 'begins' is the main action of the sentence
  • This is what the sentence is fundamentally telling us: L'Engle begins her novel in a certain way

• The phrase with the blank ('[verb form] to create a suspenseful tone...')
  • sits between commas
  • provides extra information about her intention or purpose
  • is NOT the main action - it's describing WHY she begins the novel this way

• Since 'begins' is already doing the job of the main verb, we need something else for the blank
  • We can't have another complete verb form here competing with 'begins'
  • We need a form that provides descriptive or background information

So we need: looking

This creates a descriptive phrase 'looking to create a suspenseful tone...' that tells us her goal or intention, working alongside the main action 'begins.'

GRAMMAR CONCEPT APPLIED

Using Descriptive Verb Forms vs. Main Verbs

In a sentence, you have one main verb that expresses the primary action. When you want to add extra information about purpose, intention, or background action, you use a participial form (the "-ing" form, called a present participle in grammar terms) rather than a complete verb form.

Pattern:

• Main verb structure: Subject + main verb + rest of sentence
  • Example: "The author begins her novel with dramatic descriptions"

• Adding descriptive information with participle: Subject + participial phrase (set off by commas) + main verb + rest
  • Example: "The author, looking to create suspense, begins her novel with dramatic descriptions"
  • "looking to create suspense" = descriptive phrase providing background/purpose
  • "begins" = main verb (the primary action)

In our sentence:

• Subject: "Author Madeline L'Engle"
• Descriptive phrase: "looking to create a suspenseful tone that draws the reader in" (her intention)
• Main verb: "begins" (the primary action)
• The participial form "looking" allows the phrase to provide supplementary information without competing with the main verb

Why not finite verbs (looked, looks, is looking)?

• These are complete verb forms that assert independent actions
• They would create structural confusion by competing with "begins"
• The sentence needs descriptive information, not multiple competing actions