A dependent clause (a sentence fragment set off by commas, dontcha know) helps you explore your story by moving you deeper into the sentence. It allows you to stop and think harder about what you've already written. Often the story you're looking for is inside the sentence. The dependent clause helps you uncover it.

She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

Although she was giddy with exhaustion, sleep was a lover who refused to be touched.

We don't have a unitary society anymore, you know; it's very fragmented. I look up and down my block in Silverlake and there is a different universe in every house.

I wish my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart.

I wondered where he was now whether I would ever hear him again. Whether someone would love him, someday show him what beauty mean't.

I thought how tenuous the links were between mother and children between friends family things you think are eternal. Everything could be lost more easily than anyone could imagine.