Types of Sentences and the Way They Love Us
I hate wanting to love something that’s so unlovable.
(Although I’ll admit that loving
something unlovable is even worse.) Many times I see independent writers
committing to their craft, inspiring me with their ideas and tastes, creating
striking concepts and hiring excellent graphic artists, to only get to the
actual story part and cringe until my insides flip. We’ve all read a fantastic
concept was tainted by the clunky word choice.
Voice is probably one of the most subjective aspects of
writing, and readers typically have a love-hate relationship with the stronger
prose out there. From Shakespeare to Hemingway, you’ll see a lot of polar
opinions on the striking styles. So, when I say that the main common
denominator of cringy writing is the lack of flow, it’s notable that the other
common denominator is me. (Always, whenever reading anyone’s advice, consider
your actual tastes and what sorts of things you respond to.)
Facebook recently bombarded me with a webpage similar to
my own. His serial online fantasy of short stories had striking artwork and
alluring title. I was also seeking a frequently updated website to take my mind
off of the bitterness of Reddit, so I found myself clicking the ad link many
days in a row only to stop reading after the first paragraph each time, so it
was the quintessential right place and right time, wrong material.
What made the writing so bad?
Well, I felt the story summarized the events without
painting a picture. You have little understanding of the world or the character.
It’s not that you’re overwhelmed with confusion, but that you don’t care.
What’s going on within the character is unclear and underdeveloped, and, most
importantly, each sentence doesn’t respond to any other’s existence. He tells
the story like he’s listing events, with no sense for perspective, tension,
mood, or point.
In other words, you could scramble the paragraph and it
wouldn’t affect the rhythm or flow.
What does a sentence responding to another look like? Is
that something that’s important? From my experiences reading amateur fiction, I’d
say yeah. Understanding how sentences can connect to each other is a very
simple way of improving the sound of your writing.
Standalone Sentences
A standalone sentence makes its point without implying
follow-up or requiring preamble. That point does not have to be deep; “She had
blonde hair,” clearly exists to give a description of the character. While it’s
not enough information to be a story or interesting, it does not need more
explanation before you consider the thought finished. Typically, a standalone
sentence can be easily moved anywhere in the paragraph and still work. Deleting
the sentences around it does not cause a comprehension or flow problem. It also
doesn’t have an obvious next step. It could change subjects without it feeling like
a lost thread. It also does not need to be simple, merely that the subject and
action of the sentence are clear and feel finished.
There is nothing wrong with stand-alone sentences, and
you will find that you use them often. The problem becomes when every sentence
is independent of those around it, making the writing feel clunky as if the
thoughts aren’t streamed together.
Leading Sentences
Conversely, a leading sentence implies that the thought
isn’t finished, or brings up an interesting question that the reader wants
answered. “Johnny hated Susie for her blonde hair,” might not go into why, but
it makes the reader feel like it should. A leading sentence often becomes
attached to the following sentences and they must both exist (at some point) for
it to feel complete. Leading sentences, in contrast to supportive sentences,
are usually concept based; their style could allow them to be placed later,
turning them into a conclusion instead of an introduction, but they still often
need to be kept in the same area.
Supportive Sentences
Supportive sentences give a follow up on the information
already provided. They might be capable of being a stand-alone except for the
existence of the leading sentence requires them to be nearby to make sense: “Johnny
hated Susie for her blonde hair. Light colored eyebrows made a woman look like
a chimp.”
Supportive sentences often use pronouns to reference
pre-established subjects: “Johnny hated Susie for her blonde hair. It reminded
him of his mother.”
Sometimes they need some information prior for them to be
understood or to have proper spatial continuity: “She started cutting her nails
with scissors,” may require her to find the scissors first, otherwise the
audience feels like they missed something.
Contrary to popular belief, starting a sentence with a
conjunction is accepted grammar in unformal writing, useful in creative fiction
to convey meaning, inflection, and evolution of thought. In the same vein,
there are other phrases and words that directly tie one sentence to another:
“Johnny hated Susie for her blonde hair. That didn’t exactly explain why he
felt compelled to follow her around all of the time.”
Why does it matter? How to
apply it?
When you have a series of standalone sentences, typically
speaking, the rhythm of speech is repetitive, the information is slow, it’s
unnuanced and can come off as juvenile. The author doesn’t have a lot of room
to play with the duration of actions, and you don’t learn anything about the
characters through descriptions. It’s often too explanatory and doesn’t have a
lot of atmosphere. Mainly though, when a writer has an understanding of the
narrator’s P.O.V. and tells the story from that perspective, they naturally
write a narrative with a smoother evolution of thought and events and organic
description of the world. When they write in an object sense, they tend to
summarize and be removed.
“Brandon and Kara went hiking but were unprepared for the
physical challenge. ‘Hiking is hard work,’ said Kara. She cupped her hands and
drank from a limpid mountain steam. They were in the San Gabriel Mountains and
from their elevation could see Los Angeles and the smog in the distance. In Los
Angeles city people lived in tiny apartments. The tiny apartments had tiny
windows.”
I might add this author does this intentionally,
admitting that he wants to be like Hemingway in his simplicity. It’s a style,
but one that I’m pointing out due to the clear way it affects the flow (which
is a choice you may want at some point.) The thoughts are disjointed from
another and can be moved around fairly easily. The drinking of the stream isn’t
what inspires the narrator to think about where they are; the author includes
it because it’s information he wants the reader to know and feels it’s the
right location for the bigger story, not typical train of thought. He also
(intentionally) doesn’t use pronouns very often, which makes something that
normally flows together (the windows in the apartments) feel like separate
thoughts as well.
But, there are a good number of writers who do this
unintentionally, and if you find this as clunky and Dick-and-Jane-ish as I do,
then there’s a couple of ways to watch out for it.
Figure out the P.O.V. character
Writers can get unwittingly hung up on being objective.
If you consciously decide to go that route for whatever reason, many writers
can make it work and it certainly can serve a purpose. But most people read
because they want to feel a human connection and see different perspectives on
the world. Even a fantasy fiction writer will often have a much more
charismatic style when the story is told through a human lens instead of a
robotic camera, and readers learn more from (yes even fiction) writers who are
honest about their opinions on humanity, the way the world works, and what’s
important.
Who is telling the story and how do they think? Is it
Kara? Charles? Another character? God? The author himself? All of the above? You
are creatively free to decide whatever you like, just so long as you know whose
voice is being conveyed and at what times. Description is typically not
objective, and the way that Kara or Charles or God describe something won’t be
the same. How the story is told teaches the reader more about the people
involved than when you’re just stating facts.
Next, consider alternative
ways to tell a story instead of linear events
Paragraphs of only description tend to be victim to too
many standalone sentences. This is because when you’re depicting a stagnant
image, the order of the objects doesn’t exactly matter, so many authors will
start listing thing. Using the P.O.V. character, however, you get better ideas
about how to make the description flow naturally. Kara bends down to take a
drink from the pond, sees the reflection of Charles staring out at the city,
and so turns to the city herself. The narrative now flows together, incorporating
the descriptions naturally, and you don’t feel like you’re clinically being
handed information.
Authors also don’t have to describe an entire scene
first, just because the objects were there first, but can progress the events
of a scene by sprinkling description throughout. Mentioning objects and places as
the character notices them will make
it feel more organic and less bogged down with artsy long passages of what
every thing looks like.
Also, the same applies when avoiding a practical play-by-play
during the actions of the scene, which is important because…
Length of sentence implies
duration of action.
Telling the story in the way a person would remember it
or in order of what they saw makes it easier to control the duration of an
action. Punching someone is fairly quick. Driving down the freeway is much
longer. However, when it takes the same amount of time to describe it, to the
reader, it doesn’t feel like the timing is right and tension is decreased.
“Davi went to sleep on the second story of a large inn.
Despite this, he woke up the next morning staring at the sky on a slab
surrounded by debris. Half the roof sat at an angle next to him on the ground.
A drop of dew fell off before the wind caught it and directed straight to his
forehead.”
The major problem here really is the length—they’re all
the same size despite each taking grossly different times to do. And in many
cases in this story, the author “zooms in” on small, quick events like the drop
hitting him in the forehead, while glossing over things that would have taken
much longer, (falling asleep, traveling a good distance) and things that are
much more important and interesting (like the revelation that the inn was gone.)
This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but his actual pacing consistently
fights his desired tension. The jokes don’t land, the fear doesn’t grow, and
the timing is generally off. The length of his sentences don’t serve a greater
purpose, and they tend to lack that narrative flow I’m speaking about.
By thinking of the character’s mindset about all of
this—even if the author decides he doesn’t want to describe the internal
aspects—and following his train of thought, connecting some ideas to one
another, the prose would be less clunky and more indicative of the mood the
author wanted. Though I know it was unintentional, it was clear that he wanted
each idea self-contained. Being in a large inn, waking up, the debris, and the
dew drop were all separate thoughts and had their own single sentences.
However, many of them should have been broken up into separate ideas and given
transitions connecting them to one another. The reader needs to be given time
to adjust to the normalcy of falling asleep at the inn, then comprehend it is
suddenly gone, then look for clues about what had happened. Based on the speed
in which the story is told, it feels like the character has already accepted
the strangeness of the situation long before the reader even comprehends what
exactly they are looking at.
Read the story. Out loud,
but also not.
Sometimes beginning authors find themselves overwhelmed
to what they’re supposed to be looking for when editing, and I never feel like
there’s a lot of specifics other than forbidden words. When I started writing,
it was a long and confusing path to really identify what cause contributed to
what effect, without many people being helpful. Looking for the above signs and
understanding how they related to each other took me longer to figure out than
I wanted.
But, all that being said, most times, you will see things
you can improve simply by reading what you’ve written. Most people suggest to
do it out loud, and in this case, the lack of cadence really will become
obvious by doing this. Mostly though, read your own writing. It’s the best
advice I can offer and really doesn’t take a lot of effort. It’s less of an ego
punch than being told, and most people are fairly savvy about what they need to
do with their writing all by themselves—just so long as they sit down and
actually look at what they’ve done.
Your story should flow from sentence to sentence, thought
to thought, and how a story is told gives you just as much information about
what’s being said. Check your writing for mechanical tendencies, and remember
that people like people, even if it is a love-hate relationship.
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