Writing a good sentence certainly isn’t a matter of imitating one particular style. Who would want to put a spare Joan Didion sentence against a more opulent one from Donna Tartt? There’s room for a myriad of artistic fashions when it comes to styling sentences.

But not paying attention to the specific functions and effects of our words will result in weak writing. I’m going to jump right over the usual suggestions to scrutinize your adjectives, cut your adverbs, vary your sentence lengths, and offer some advice that will take your sentences beyond Writing 101. 

1-Choose better words

Seems obvious, right? Well, it may be, but it’s certainly not easy. Sometimes the first word that comes to mind doesn’t end up being the best word. Ask yourself if your language is fresh, vivid, and precise. And rather than going for a fancy or unexpected word, see if you can use an expected word in an unexpected way. 

Most of us are less likely to choose an incorrect word than we are to choose an inexact word. For instance, what’s the difference between poured, gushed, surged, and cascaded? It’s the small variations between words that present a challenge, and the distinctions matter. I recommend revising with a good writer’s thesaurus close by (I own a well-used copy of the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus).

“Use the right word, not its second cousin,” said Mark Twain. Now that’s a quote to pin above your desk.

2-Prune Your Prepositional Phrases

Prepositional phrases are useful, but they’re also overused. I’m so sensitive to this one that when I come across words like of, with, since, after, and to, my editorial radar flips on. Which doesn’t mean that I’m going to cut something. But every prepositional phrase needs to be questioned. 

When you’re deciding what to cut and what to keep, ask yourself if you’d lose any clarity or meaning if the phrase was gone. If it’s needed, see if you can fold in the information more efficiently. A business owner from a small town could become a small-town business owner.

What if William Goldman had written, My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die [on this rocky cliff]. The prepositional phrase would not only be unnecessary (the setting should already have notified us of the cliff), it drains away some of the emphasis that should fall on the word “die”. Be aware that unnecessary prepositional phrases love to sneak in at the end of sentences. Which brings me to…

3-Finish strong

Words in a sentence should be arranged in a logical progression, in a natural order that moves from broad to specific, from less vivid to more vivid, from less important to most important. The first and last words of a sentence carry the most weight, and of those two spots, the last words are the most significant.

Writing teacher Stephen Wilbers calls this last spot in the sentence the “V.I.P Parking” spot—only the most important words can park there. Consider this simple sentence: My foot has a blister the size of Oklahoma, I’m hot, and I’m tired.

Can you see how the parts are in the wrong order? A blister the size of Oklahoma is the most specific element, the most impactful, and should go last. Reordered it reads, I’m hot, I’m tired, and my foot has a blister the size of Oklahoma.

4- Go for sequence over simultaneity

This problem comes up so often in my writing classes that I have to include it here. Writers often fall into the trap of starting a sentence with a present participle phrase. Let me give you an example and explain why this is problematic. Consider the following sentence: Slamming her drink down on the table, Erica left the restaurant.

That sentence implies that Erica slamming her drink down and her leaving the restaurant happened at the same time. It implies simultaneity when in fact those two actions are sequential—one thing happened and then the other. Better to write: Erica slammed her drink down on the table and left the restaurant. 

Readers process one idea at a time, and any sentence that presents actions happening simultaneously, when those actions are actually happening in sequence, can confuse your reader. Even if they know what you mean, it will come off as sloppy writing. Search your manuscript for any “ing” words that come at the beginning of your sentences and make sure you’re using them properly.

5-Tighten the voice

When a reader begins a piece, the first thing they wonder (whether they realize it or not) is Who is speaking and why? They are quickly assessing style and tone and content. The “voice” you employ is what is going to give your reader not just information, but an experience. Once you press down on the voice gas pedal, you cannot let up.

Tightening the voice in your sentences involves applying every technique I’ve mentioned so far and then some. Whether the narrator is you (as in memoir) or whether you’re writing third-person fiction, you must have a clear conception of your story world and your narrator’s attitude toward it. 

You must know whether your tone should be formal or informal. You must understand why a character would use one word rather than another. You will be able to inhabit the world of your story when you understand the deep truth of what you’re trying to convey. And then your language can reveal it, sentence by sentence.

Precision, clarity, and artful effects don’t happen by accident and they often don’t happen in the first draft. Many of your newest sentences are going to have things wrong with them. It’s good to know this so you don’t slow yourself down by trying to sculpt your sentences when you should be dumping onto the table that lump of first-draft clay.

Once you’ve got your draft, then go back and underline any words that don’t seem spot on. Bracket the parts of your sentences that might be serving as clutter rather than providing clarity. Scrutinize the ends of your sentences, knowing that the ending carries the most weight.

Upleveling your sentences is hard work and there’s no way around that. But it’s worth it. In the words of William Zinsser, in his classic book On Writing Well,—“Both you and the reader know it when your finicky labor is rewarded by a sentence coming out right.”

KIM LOZANO is an editor and creative writing coach from St. Louis. Although she loves to travel, her heart and writing are always calling her home to the Great Plains. Her own work has been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Third Coast, The Iowa Review, North American Review, and many other publications. You can find out more about her coaching at kimlozano.com. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

The post #5onFri: Five Ways to Uplevel Your Sentences appeared first on DIY MFA.

This episode was so much fun to record because as soon as Barbara and I started chatting, I knew I had found a likeminded word lover and writing teacher. Her approach to writing as a practice and as a teachable skill goes hand in hand with the DIY MFA philosophy and her focus on sentence-level craft will compliment the more “big picture” techniques you learn here at DIY MFA.

I hope you get as much out of this conversation as I did, and if you want to learn more about how to use language in a way that moves and resonates with your readers, check out her books below or enter to win her latest book in a Goodreads giveaway. Now here’s that episode:

About Barbara Baig

Barbara is a writer and veteran writing teacher who is passionate about helping writers learn to use the English language with precision and power. Having created the popular Writing Workshops at Harvard Divinity School and taught them for two decades, she now teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Lesley University. She has published many articles about writing and an earlier book, How To Be a Writer: Building Your Creative Skills Through Practice and Play (Writer’s Digest, 2010). Her new book, Spellbinding Sentences is out now.

In this episode Barbara and I discuss:

• Writing for your reader.
• What it means to learn through practice as a writer.
• Practicing writing to activate your imagination.
• Writing as enticing the reader into a conversation.
• How writing is a way of convincing your reader and how “craft enables you to articulate your vision so other people can see it the way you want them to.”

Plus, Barbara’s #1 tip for writers.

Tweet this.

Resources:

If you want to know more about Barbara Baig, check out her website or follow her blog.

You can also check out her Goodreads page and enter to win a copy of Spellbinding Sentences here!

About Spellbinding Sentences

Spellbinding Sentences gives aspiring writers an innovative way to learn their skills—the same way professional athletes and musicians learn theirs: through deliberate practice. Sentences is the first writing instruction book based on current research in the field of expertise studies, where scientists have shown that expertise is not the result of innate talent, but of good coaching, dedication to practice, and imitation of models of excellence. Sentences shows aspiring writers, for the first time, how to use these methods to improve their ability to write powerful sentences that keep readers turning pages.

Spellbinding Sentences has been endorsed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Jane Brox, Edward Dolnick (New York Times best-selling author of The Rescue Artist), prize-winning British novelist Emma Darwin, Mark Bauerlein (author of The Dumbest Generation), and others.

Link to Episode 61

(Right-click to download.)

Want even more tools to help you master the craft?

Check out the DIY MFA online writing conference:

Writer Igniter Con 2015
October 24-25

Click the link to learn more or register.

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome.

The post Episode 61: How to Write Spellbinding Sentences–Interview with Barbara Baig appeared first on DIY MFA.