Writing With Power: Clarity, Concision, And Variation, Part B

This is part two of a presentation offered at the LDS writers conference. The area of notes covers Variation is a strategy of style Any misinformation is the fault of the note taker.

Sample of text:

My sister Rose was a cheerleader in high school. She attended evergreen high back in the late 90s. Her grades weren’t that good, but she had fun socially. When she started dating a baseball player, she stops cheering. Surprisingly, this made my parents happy her grades improved. Dating anyone exclusively turned out to be a motivator for her. Because he was driven, he helped her study more. He wouldn’t go out with her until they’d finish their homework. This guy was a great influence on her.

Note the variety of sentences.

My sister Rose was a cheerleader in high school. (9) She attended evergreen high back in the late 90s. (9 Her grades weren’t that good, but she had fun socially. (10) When she started dating a baseball player, she stops cheering. (10) Surprisingly, this made my parents happy her grades improved. (9) Dating anyone exclusively turned out to be a motivator for her. (11) Because he was driven, he helped her study more. (9) He wouldn’t go out with her until they’d finish their homework. (11) This guy was a great influence on her. (8)

There is little variety in the sentences. We have about an 8-11 word range per sentence. As a stylist use sentence variety to strengthen your pros.

Variation is a strategy of style. Look at the paragraph below.

Note the variety of sentences.

There is little variety in the sentences. We have about an 8-11 word range per sentence. As a stylist use sentence variety to strengthen your pros.

Here is an example of sentence variety for a professional writer named James Baldwin from his book, Notes from a Native son. Notice how to uses the variety of sentences from short, to long, to add emotion and variety. This scene is after the character was thrown in jail because his roommate stole linens.

Text from James Baldwin:
He gave me a package of Lucky Strikes and said that, though it was doubtful that there’d be any celebration in the prison. He would see to it that I got a fine Christmas dinner when I got out. And this, somehow, seemed very funny. I remember being astonished at the discovery that I was actually laughing. I was, too, I imagine, also rather disappointed that my hair had not turned white, that my face was clearly not going to bear any marks of tragedy, disappointed at bottom, to doubt, to realize facing him in that room, that far worse things had happened to most people, and that, indeed, to paraphrase my mother, if this was the worst thing that ever happened to me I could consider myself among the luckiest people ever to be born.

Note how Baldwin is using longer and shorter sentences to create a real strong feeling here.
Sentence length adds variety.

– There is also a variety of sentence structures.
– You see in the long sentence length in the middle of the text. Baldwin interrupts the flow of the sentence even between subjects and verbs or verbs and direct objects with different kinds of grammatical structures. He has rhythm and editorial content.

Now let’s review the changed text in Rose’s text:

My sister Rose was a cheerleader in high-at Evergreen high, back in the late 90s. Though she was ship-smart, she couldn’t keep her grades up. Too busy playing. She stopped cheering, though, when she started dating a baseball player, a remarkably studious one whose manic drive for excellence, in math as in baseball, made my parents giddy. Because he studied, Rose studied. A lot. In part, because he wouldn’t spend time with her until homework was done. In short, he was a good influence on her.

Note how the sentences are handled.

My sister Rose was a cheerleader in high-[prepositional phrase separated with a dash] at Evergreen high, back in the late 90s. Thought she was ship-smart, [starting dependent clause making a complex sentence] she couldn’t keep her grades up. Too busy playing. [Intentional sentence fragments] She stopped cheering, though, when she started dating a baseball player, a remarkably studious one [interruption] whose manic drive for excellence, in math as in baseball, [interruption] made my parents giddy. Because he studied, [starting dependent clause making a complex sentence] Rose studied. A lot. [Intentional sentence fragments] In part [intentional sentence fragments] because he wouldn’t spend time with her until homework was done. In short, he was a good influence on her.

– There’s a prepositional phrase separated with a dash.
– You may have heard of compound, complex, or compound-complex sentences.
– You also may have noticed sentence fragments here, which you would usually mark, is an error, but these are intentional sentence fragments.
– Interruptions, just like the Baldwin example where here we have a positive phrase modifying flow a positive just means you rename the noun that comes before that element
– A brief opening phrase separated by a comma, which is another way to create some rhythm to your sentences.
– So a remarkably studious baseball player is modifying the word baseball player.
– then again, a propositional phrase also modifying the flow and then a brief opening phrase separated by a comma, which is another way to create some rhythm to your sentences.