"Ing" verses "Ed"

[K.A.Bate]

I always get mixed up on description.
 
Which one is better?

Example: "Her eyes fell on me, purpose burning in the gray of her steely eyes."

Or: "He eyes fell on me, purpose burned in the gray of her steely eyes."

I'm big on flow.  Which flows correctly?

By the way,
Thanks, Patrick, for starting this new header.

[violet]

I like the first one.

To me, if you use the second, it works too, but only if you put in a semicolon, not a comma.

 

[munley]

I couldn't judge the flow without looking at the sentence in the context of the sentences that come before and after. Even a sentence with beautiful phrasing should go if it is repeated so often in nearby sentences that it becomes monotonous.

Regarding your example, the first one uses and appositive (purpose burning. . .) and is one of many grammatically correct ways you could express this idea.

The second is a grammatical error, a comma-spliced sentence.  You could correct it with
. Purpose burned. . .
Not a bad idea if a few short sentences would improve the sentence-length variety. Also good if you want the reader to slow down right now. Again, can't really tell what the best choice is without a larger context.


Example:
"Her eyes fell on me, purpose burning in the gray of her steely eyes."

Or:
"Her eyes fell on me , purpose burned  in the gray of her steely eyes."

[Magic_Seeker]

I don't like to use -ing's when I can avoid it -- I use far toooooo many as it is.  However,

"Her eyes fell on me, purpose burning in the gray of her steely eyes."  This is gramatically correct.

"He eyes fell on me, and purpose burned in the gray of her steely eyes."  Now this one is correct too.
(Semi-colon or a period are also right.)

Munley.  You need to read the whole paragraph out loud and find the flow that way.

[DHE]

I agree with Munley--go with whichever sounds better in the paragraph (usually meaning whatever's going to give it more variation).  Also, it makes a difference if you want it to be a slower moment, in which case, go with the longer sentence, or if you're intending it to be more intense, in which case separating it into two sentences with the "ed" would communicate that better.

If you go with the "ed," I vote for separating them into two distinct sentences.

[K.A.Bate]

Thank you everyone, for your help.   Karma to you all!