Variety is the spice of...prose.
Sentence Variety
In a rough draft it's more important to focus on what you’re writing rather than how you’re writing it. Once we finish revisions, however, it's time to look at the words on the page and see how they can best serve the story we are trying to tell. One of the ways we can keep our prose engaging and effective is by using sentence structure and length to our advantage.
Sentence Structure
Let’s look at a few kinds of sentences.
“The dog ran.” (simple sentence)
“The dog ran away from its owner.” (simple sentence)
“The dog ran, but the cat ran faster.” (compound sentence)
“If you want to catch the dog, you’ll have to be quick.” (complex sentence)
“The cat made it to a tree, which is unfortunate for the dog, because ol’ boy can’t climb.” (compound-complex sentence)
If we are accidentally falling into a pattern by using the same sentence style and length over and over again, we can lull the reader into inattention. There are times, however, when we can use patterns to our advantage.
An example from Red Rising by Pierce Brown
This is when I kiss her. I cannot give her the Haemanthus. That is my heart, and it is of Mars–one of the only things born from the Red Soil. And it is still Eo’s. But this girl, when they took her…I would have done anything to see her smirking again. Perhaps one day I’ll have two hearts to give. She tastes how she smells. Smoke and hunger. We do not pull apart. My fingers wend through her hair. Her’s trace along my jaw, my neck, and scrape along the back of my scalp. There is a bed. There is time. And there’s a hunger different from when I first kissed Eo. But I remember when the Gamma Helldiver, Dago, took a deep pull from his burner, turning it bright but dead in a few quick moments. He said, This is you.I know I am impetuous. Rash. I process that. And I am full of many things–passion, regret, guilt, sorrow, longing, rage. At times they rule me, but not now. Not here.
Brown often uses repetition to his advantage; in this example we have “There is a bed. There is time. And there’s a hunger different from when I first kissed Eo.”
Done intentionally, as part of a style, repetition can add to the message rather than distract from it. But consider the following.
“I glide over to her. I kiss her. ‘I love you,’ I say. She smiles. She brushes a hand over my face. She laces our fingers together. She squeezes. I know it means ‘I love you too.’”
Vs
“I glide over and kiss her. ‘I love you,’ I say. She smiles, brushing a hand over my face, then laces our fingers together. Squeezes. I know it means I love you too.”
Something else I love about the above snippet from Red Rising is how Brown uses the length of the sentences. If we put each of them into a chart based on word count, we would see a wave going up and down. This variety keeps the passage interesting, and the use of really short, simple sentences means when they become longer it cues the reader, letting them know there’s about to be important information. The longer sentence “But I remember when the Gamma Helldiver, Dago, took a deep pull from his burner, turning it bright but dead in a few quick moments.” drives us into the next, very short, very impactful sentence “He said, This is you.”
Here is my own attempt, from The Wingbreaker
Today was more than exhaustion. The very life left her body. The color in her eyes paled, clouded like the dead. Her skin became sallow and burned like fire–truly hot enough that, where their arms met as he carried her, there remained patches of red, as if he’d been scorched by the sun. His mouth, too, held the mark of her. He worried at the small hurt on his bottom lip. In her delirium, she’d studied him, touched him. Even knowing the gentleness was unintended, even understanding that at the door of death and illness hallucinations beckon one to step through the threshold, he was greedily, twistedly grateful for a glimpse into another life. One where they weren’t on opposite sides. Grateful, too, for the burn—physical proof of the way he’d been branded. Twice.
Speaking of The Wingbreaker, how about some updates?
The Wingbreaker is currently in its second round of beta readers—and it’s going well! I’ve drafted my query letter, but it could use some tweaks. A synopsis will have to magically manifest as well. I’m aiming to begin contacting agents before the end of the year. Book two in the Wingbreaker series is halfway through its first draft. This week Jasmine Wallace recorded a reading of book one and did a phenomenal job.
In other news
I’ll be releasing this newsletter bi-weekly rather than weekly from this point on, and on off weeks I’ll be writing for my lovelies over at the Between the Pages Podcast. There’s a lot of news on the way and I’m so pumped to share what we’ve been working on!
Copyediting
The editing course is going well. Two weeks done, eight more to go! ‘Phrases and Clauses’ melted my brain, but sentence structure was so fun! I’ve already got a handful of friends’ books scheduled so that when I’m ready to start marketing in earnest there’s proof I can do the work.
Real Life
We were late to the Christmas tree farm and ended up having to get an artificial one. The kids picked the ornaments, so we decorated with cupcakes, candies, sequin ornaments, and unicorns. Funny how it always turns out pretty no matter how the colors and themes clash. It was a warm day, because Texas, but we had hot chocolate anyways.
See you on the 28th!
Remember, there are no absolutes in writing. In the end, the story itself is what matters most. Mossgrovewrites hopes to scrutinize traditional craft wisdom and ponder its pros and cons, alongside offering one writer’s opinions and the experiences that shaped them.
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