I think most of us know what it’s like to read a perfectly written paragraph, or even chapter. The prose lilts beautifully in your head, falling and rising like swooping over rolling hills while being gently lifted by a cool breeze–okay, maybe that voice in your mind isn’t a good singer but you get the point. How do writers create this phenomenon? While there are many technicalities that go into writing a scene such as this–one that not only looks aesthetically pleasing but feels that way too–sentence length goes a long way. Punctuation and word choice also play a mighty role in this choir of text, yet if one fails to regard sentence length sitting over in the corner, all by himself, you might as well be not be a writer at all. This imperative part of the writer’s arsenal all by itself, for instance, can jolt, drown, or, if used incorrectly, frustrate the reader. How can it jolt, you ask? Read the following:
A light, powdery dusting of snow rested on the outside window sill, the air in the house had a frozen feeling to it, as if time no longer moved in these small hours; gaily wrapped presents sat under the glittering fir tree in the middle of the room, and beckoned me closer, daring me to breathe on the polished, colorful ornaments and disrupt the prevalent sense of quiet grandeur.
Christmas had arrived.
(*These two sentences were totally not influenced by the Christmas tree sitting next to me.)
Did you feel it? The jolt on the last sentence, as we came off such a long one? Sure, it might have only been a tiny thump, but if I had added even more long sentences before the short one it would have been better. This method of long-long-long-short has been used by pretty much all known writers, and for good reason! It sends whatever is in the short sentence into the spotlight. This could easily be a name, or a place, or even a piece of dialogue. It makes the reader remember something.
Okay, okay, so sentences can jolt–I also said drowning. How can it make the reader drown? Consider this:
The bright hot blazing sun shone down on the sweaty slick workers who wished for nothing but a mere refreshing sip of water, while their cruel comfortable taskmaster basked in the same sun they toiled under and laughed because misery was a funny thing to him which only showed the lengths his parents had gone to to raise him–which was probably about an inch long or maybe even less than an inch considering the lost evil glint in his dark brown eyes.
I probably didn’t do a great job, but to put it quite simply: the lack of punctuation and the drawing out of sentences leads to a reader struggling to breathe. Since there is no punctuation where there should be the reader careens ahead not stopping and not breathing much like this sentence until finally they crash at the period and take a refreshing gasp of air. This is actually a style. Can you imagine an entire book like this? I certainly couldn’t manage it–either to write it or to read it.
Finally, when a writer is not familiar with these concepts, or perhaps takes them too seriously, we get such things like:
He. Captured. Her.
That foul, villain had taken Eli’s one, true love and now, gloated in pride and victory, sending Eli into a tail-spin, and meanwhile his girlfriend dangled mercilessly, by her hands, over the aquarium full of sharks, which surely would be ready to rip her to pieces, given the chance. That. Evil. Misogynist.
Don’t laugh. We’ve all started somewhere. Usually having a bunch of words separated only by periods is the mark of an amateur–though it can still be used effectively by seasoned writers if they’re careful and know what they’re doing–and cause readers (or at least me) to disconnect and start scanning. The long sentence with waaaaaaaay too many commas is also the mark of someone just beginning to write. Both of these are uber frustrating to readers as they slow them down, add unnecessary punctuation and words and, in the case of the excessive periods, the prose sounds childish.
So you see, there’s a fine line between sounding like a pro and sounding like an absolute moron. It takes practice to get things perfect, and it might take years before one truly has enough of a grasp on it to make music in their prose. By far, the easiest pattern to master is the long-long-long-short, so if you’re interested in creating a rhythm in your work, I suggest starting there. Don’t be afraid to write sentences that last a whole paragraph, or a page, or even TWO pages (okay that might get old but I wish you luck) and then surprise the reader with a sudden declaration like “She stabbed her husband mercilessly and killed him instantly.”
(Don’t actually kill your husband ladies. That’s murder and you’ll go to jail.)
Good luck and don’t murder someone out of frustration!
~WordTechnician
Word Technician 