Sentences – Part 1

If we break a book down into its constituent parts, starting with the smallest part, we get the following:
words – sentences – paragraphs – scenes – chapters
In the last blog, we discussed words. Now lets look at sentences.

SENTENCES – Always keep in mind that sentences don’t generally occur in isolation. Be aware of what comes before and after each sentence. You want to vary both the length AND the structure of your sentences to prevent dull, monotonous passages.

AVOID – sentences that are awkward sounding or choppy. Care should also be taken not to interrupt the flow of a sentence with unbalanced constructions or vague references.

LENGTH – SHORT SENTENCES can be effectively used when you want to EMPHASIZE a point. Same goes for SENTENCE FRAGMENTS. Used properly, sentence fragments can inject energy and provide emphasis. Sometimes. But now always.

LONG SENTENCES – provide writers the opportunity to wax poetic, to stretch their wings – or tentacles – and soar above the everyday rhetoric of plain declarative sentences. The key here is to AVOID MEANDERING SENTENCES. If you spot a sentence that’s meandering, out of control, or off its leash, call and report it to your local SPCA. Or consider breaking it into smaller, more manageable units for clarity’s sake.

KEEP SUBJECTS AND VERBS AS CLOSE TOGETHER AS POSSIBLE –
Instead of: The GAZELLE saw the lion crouched and hiding in the distant grass and RAN away.
write: The gazelle ran away when it saw the lion crouched and hiding in the distant grass.

Sentences can be a simple DECLARATIVE STATEMENT like this: “Mary went to see Doctor Simms”.

Or, a sentence could be broken down into a two-part structure consisting of a MAIN CLAUSE and a SUBORDINATE CLAUSE.

“Because she felt sick, Mary went to see Doctor Simms.” The SUBORDINATE CONJUNCTION – “because” indicates which part of the sentence is the subordinate clause. COORDINATE CONJUNCTIONS like “and” or “but” are used to tie two equally important clauses together into a single sentence.

Having two main clauses (COORDINATE CLAUSES) is fine if each clause in your sentence has equal importance:
Bill chopped the firewood AND Mike stacked it in the truck.

But often when you want to express two thoughts in a single sentence, instead of stringing together two main clauses, it’s better to establish one of them as subordinate.

Instead of writing, “Debbie had had a stressful day and she decided to go out with Zona for a drink.”
write the following: “Because she’d had a stressful day, Debbie decided to go out with Zona for a drink.”

Force and clarity can sometimes be lost when a writer fails to properly subordinate one of the clauses in a sentence.
Abbi was tired, but she decided to go to the beach.

Here, equal stress is placed on each clause, where clearly the emphasis should be placed on the second clause. For the sake of force and clarity, it should be written as follows:

Although Abbi was tired, she decided to go to the beach.

In COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC, this technique of SUBORDINATION demonstrates to readers the author has weighed the importance of the points, and properly indicated their relationships to one another. In CREATIVE writing, subordination provides a tool to manage rhythm and flow. If every sentence was a simple declarative sentence, the writing would be dull and boring.

Consider –
Debbie woke up that morning. She got dressed. She went downstairs. She made breakfast.
This type of writing is fine if you want your writing to be prescribed by doctors for insomnia.

However, through techniques like subordination or – as in the following example – parallel structure, we can mold sentences to provide better flow, and therefore make them more pleasing to the reader.

After awakening that morning, Debbie got dressed, went downstairs, and made breakfast.

PUNCTUATION MATTERS – Punctuation IS important.

Consider the following: I sat down at the table and turned to my wife. “Have you eaten pumpkin?”
Readers would naturally assume from reading the sentence that I was inquiring if my wife had eaten some pumpkin.
Now read the following: I sat down at the table and turned to my wife. “Have you eaten, Pumpkin?”
In this version, by adding a comma, and replacing a lower-case p with an upper-case P, we get a completely different impression from identical words. Therefore, learning the placement and purpose of punctuation marks is essential if you wish to write clearly and effectively.