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11 : 47 p . m . Mina pushed the printout across the table . " That opening is still wrong . " Oleg did not look up . " It is not wrong . " " It is difficult . " " Those are different accusations . " They had been editing the same essay for three hours . The author was writing about abandoned railway stations and the way cities preserve traces of routes that no longer exist . The prose was intelligent , but every second paragraph seemed determined to announce its intelligence through unusual word order . The sentence under dispute read : " Through the broken windows came the smell of wet stone and rust . " Mina tapped it with her pen . " Why not simply write , ' The smell of wet stone and rust came through the broken windows ' ? " " Because the windows matter first , " Oleg said . " The sentence begins with the visual frame , then lets the smell enter it . " The difference was not grammaticality . Both versions were grammatical . The difference was information structure . Neutral English normally places the subject before the verb : " The smell of wet stone and rust came through the broken windows . " The author's version fronts the prepositional phrase : " Through the broken windows came the smell of wet stone and rust . " With a locative expression in initial position , the verb can precede the subject . The sentence becomes marked , and the scene unfolds in a different order . Mina read both versions aloud . " The marked one is better here , " she admitted . Oleg smiled . " One . " " Do not keep score . " They moved to the next paragraph . " On the platform stood a ticket machine no one had used in twenty years . " Mina frowned again . " Same trick . " " Same structure , different purpose . " " No . Now it feels like a trick . " That was the problem with marked word order . A single departure from neutral syntax can sharpen attention . Repeated too often , it becomes visible as technique . Mina rewrote the sentence : " An unused ticket machine stood on the platform . " The second version was plainer , but after the previous inversion , plainness improved the rhythm . " So you accept fronting , " Oleg said . " I accept earned fronting . " They continued . The next sentence read : " That particular silence , I had never heard before . " This time the object had been fronted . Neutral order would be : " I had never heard that particular silence before . " Fronting the object creates contrastive emphasis . The phrase " that particular silence " becomes the topic before the reader reaches the comment about it . Oleg defended it . " The whole paragraph has been describing different kinds of silence . This says : that one , specifically , was new . " Mina nodded slowly . " Then it works because the contrast already exists . " That became their first rule : A fronted element should have a reason to arrive first . Sometimes that reason is contrast . " That explanation , I can accept . The other one , I cannot . " Sometimes it is scene - setting . " Beyond the station stretched a row of empty warehouses . " Sometimes it is textual continuity : a writer fronts information already active in the reader's mind so that the new information can come later . " The northern entrance had been sealed for years . Through that entrance , however , the workers returned on Monday . "
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