Introduction
(From Book)
Almost anyone can benefit by learning more about writing sentences. You don't have to be a student to benefit from this book; you just need the desire to write well. You must certainly want to create better sentences, or you would not be reading this page. If you already know how to write good, basic sentences but fell they still lack something, that they have no variety, no style, then this book is for you.
But how do you go about writing better sentences? The answer is simple. You learn to write better sentences as you learn almost every other skill: by imitating the examples of those who have the skill. You probably have already discovered that it is easier to master anything - jumping hurdles, doing a swan dive, or playing the guitar - if you imitate a model. Nowhere is this principle more obvious than in writing. If you are willing to improve your writing skills by copying models of clear sentences, the following five chapters will help you master the skill of writing well, with grace and style.
THE WHOLE IS THE SUM OF ITS PARTS
CHAPTER 1 briefly reviews what constitutes a sentence. If you need to review the functions of different parts of a sentence, you may need a supplementary book with a fuller discussion of sentence structure. This chapter covers the various parts of the sentence, utilizing the traditional terms you will find in the explanations of the patterns in CHAPTER 2
SKILL COMES FROM PRACTICE
CHAPTER 2, the heart of this book, contains twenty different sentence patterns, some with variations. Study the graphic picture of each pattern (the material in the numbered boxes) and notice the precise punctuation demanded for that pattern; you will then be able to imitate these different kinds of sentences. The explanation under each boxed pattern will further clarify HOW and WHEN you should use that particular pattern; the examples will give you models to imitate; the exercises will provide practice. With these as guides, try writing and revising until you master the skill of constructing better sentences.
As you revise, take some of your original sentences and rewrite them to fit a number of these patterns. This technique may at first seem too deliberate, too contrived an an attempt at an artificial style. Some of the sentences you create may not seem natural. But what may seem artificial at first will ultimately be the means to greater ease in writing with flair and style.
CLEAR WRITING COMES FROM REWRITING
Your first draft of any communication - letter, theme, report (either written or oral) - will almost always need revision. When you first try to express ideas, you are mainly interested in capturing your elusive thoughts, in making them concrete enough on a sheet of paper for you to think about them. An important step in the writing process - in fact, where writing really begins - is revision, an ongoing process. You must work deliberately to express your captured ideas in clear and graceful sentences.
COMBINATIONS LEAD TO ENDLESS VARIETY
CHAPTER 3 will give you some tips on style and show you how some of the basic twenty styling patterns in CHAPTER 2 can combine with other patterns. Study the examples given and described in CHAPTER 3; then let your imagination guide you to making effective combinations of the different patterns.
Analyze the sentences from professional writers to discover rhetorical subtleties and ways of achieving clarity, style, and variety.
IMAGINATION IS ONE CORNERSTONE OF STYLE
CHAPTER 4 will show you how to express your thoughts in imaginative, figurative language. Study the pattern for each figure of speech described there, and then insert an occasional one - simile, metaphor, analogy, allusion, personification, hyperbole - into your own writing. Or you might experiment with an ironical tone. Be original; never merely echo some well-known, ready-made cliché. Create new images from your own experiences.
UNDERSTANDING COMES FROM ANALYSIS
CHAPTER 5 contains excerpts from the works of experienced writers who have in incorporated patterns like the ones described. Study the marginal notes that give the pattern numbers you have learned from studying CHAPTER 2. Then analyze something you are reading; discover for yourself how writers handle their sentences and their sentences and their punctuation. Don't be afraid to imitate them when you write. You will, of course, find "patters" (arrangements of words in sentences) that are not in CHAPTER 2 of this book. Imitate others as well as the twenty we present.
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Book by:
Ann Longknife
............K.D.Sullivan