How to Write Great Sentences
Whether you’re an aspiring or seasoned writer, you can always learn new ways to improve your work. In this post, we’ll talk about how to write great sentences using the universal formula for the English language.
The English language structure is Subject + Verb + Object. Therefore, all well-structured English sentences follow this pattern. Most of us learned about the SVO rule in grammar school where we wrote sentences like, Jack plays baseball. Although we know how to craft longer, more detailed sentences, it’s a good idea to go back to basics to understand how it works.
To begin, let’s look at how John Gardner, in his book The Art of Fiction, explains how to write better sentences. In English, there are three syntactic slots or as Gardner dubbed them, meaning units in most sentences. Naturally then, writing great sentences means learning how to:
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- Recognize each syntactic slot.
- Load syntactic slots.
- Avoid overloading the syntactic slots.
These simple rules will make your sentences longer, more complex and more engaging.
Use the Pattern to Write Great Sentences
1. The sentence pattern
First, the writer should map out each slot before constructing the sentence. This becomes very natural with a little practice.
Let’s use Gardner’s example for all three parts:
We now see that the slots represent each part of the sentence. Before we move on, let’s look at the sentence in its simplest form.
2. Load one or more slots to create complex sentences.
Slot one – The subject
Can you see how loading the subject slot extends the sentence and at the same time begins to bring it to life? In fact, the vividness explodes off the page and makes an ordinary sentence the start of a word painting.
Slot two – The verb
Now, leaving the subject without adjustment, the verb is loaded to make the words move around right in front of the reader. Here we see the old man coming down the road ragged, tattered but unwittingly happy.
Slot three – The object
Leaving the subject and verb alone, we can focus on what kind of road the man is walking down. In this case, the road becomes a real viable, vivid object to the reader.
Slots 1 & 2 – The subject & verb
Some authors will load up slots one and two. Those who do it well, keep the reader entertained causing them to lose themselves in the stories they write.
Here is Gardner’s example:
A Great Sentence from Chaim Potok
Potok, one of my favorite authors, knows how to load up sentences. Here is one of his sixty-seven words sentences:
The caps tapped against the stone of the steps, then against the stone of the top landing in front of the double door -and I remembered the old man I often saw walking along Lee Avenue, moving carefully through the busy street and tapping, tapping, his metal-capped cane, which served him for eyes he had lost in a First World War trench doing a German Gas attack.
A Potential Great Sentence Setback
On rare occasion, one might load all the slots. It’s risky business. Personally, I like to choose one slot, and when needed two. Loading all three slots, might lose the main objective of relaying meaning. Three slots, full of information is just, more often than not, overkill. If you can keep in mind all the elements of your sentence then load it up.
3. Overloading all three slots
Loading all the slots.
Check out some of the best or perhaps some of the worst long sentences in literature.
Try making your own complex sentence. If you like, add your sentence to the comments.
Where to start: Jack hit the ball.
