Composing Effective Prose: Part 4

SENTENCES

“If you hone your craft, carefully and consistently, looking always for ways to improve, your writing will sing as song lyrics and shine like a well-crafted light show,” said the teacher. “Your writing will become art.”

The student stared, unamused. “Duh.”

Once you have the components of a good sentence wrangled into compliance, you should look at the sentences themselves. 

We can write a good sentence. We can then write another. We can write another after that. And yet another to follow it. 

Or, we can use ever paintbrush in our kit, painting a story with varied brushstrokes and different colors, expanding the universe of the reader with the beauty of words.

Mix 'em up. Sentences should be varied to fit the subject. They can be short, brutal, smart, pithy, lengthy, etc. But, they should never be the same. Think of sentences as people of the world; we are each different, beautiful in our own right. Wouldn't life be mundane if we were all the same, even if we were all "well constructed?"

If you go simple, go deep. It is better to say too little than too much, better to have the reader engaged in his/her own world building than to tire over loquacious expressiveness.

Take one of the most memorable passages from the Bible, in the eleventh chapter of John in the New Testament. These are possibly the most moving words ever written, and they are simple...

"Jesus wept."

Take risks. Consider patterns that best suit your work. Ballet would be brief and boring if the dancers were stuck in first position. Instead, they perform short Brisé volé moves, powerful Jeté entrelacés, ending in a deep, slow Plié. Remember to have variety, energy, and grace to make the performance of your work at it's best.

With a bit of direction on what TO do, please also notice and be aware of what NOT to do. Don't fall privy to one of the following sentence sins…

Purple Prose

Sure, purple prose is beautiful. It’s also heavy and slow. Purple prose is to writing what the dancing hippos were to fantasia.

“The moon shone, dripping over the horizon, shoving aside the shadows and creeping into the dripping sap of the bayou with sticky fingers, pushing its beams of illumination into the mansion, revealing a brooding mademoiselle of tears and grief, knife to throat, morals asunder, gaping in frenzied horror at the draining veins of the stout man, screaming madly at him, “You deserve to die, and so do I!”

Who got through that sentence? Something incredible is going on, and the reader can barely see it amongst “mush.” That doozy needs to be tamed, simplified, and split into several sentences.

Plain Boring

Similar to the passage above, see how far you can get through this paragraph without stopping or zoning out.

“He sincerely regretted to inform the vehicle’s owner of the unceremonious damage caused as their unmaintained boom performed a faulty function and lowered into the front portion of the right corner bumper of the vehicle. Repairs had been required for some time on this piece of equipment, however, due to the large volume of traffic seen in said parking garage, the mechanical needs had fallen into neglect, hence causing damage and frustration.”

There are a hundred ways to tell this in a more interesting manner without losing the reader.

In summation, your reader expects you to take them on a journey! Design the page in a way that takes the words away and leaves only your glorious story.

This has been another "'No Post on Sundays' Post"

#NoPostonSundaysPost