Increasing the Strength of Your Sentences

This month we’re bringing you a series of articles with practical writing tips from Mary Nilsen. Mary has facilitated writing workshops at the Collegeville Institute for several years, and is the author of the book, Words that Sing: Composing Lyrical Prose, among others. Last week, Mary discussed how to turn up the dial on your verbs; today, she turns her attention to power sentences.

I am intent on writing a review of A Sugar Creek Chronicle by Cornelia Mutel. As a writer myself, I know how much I appreciate people who write reviews or even write to me with comments, yet I rarely do these things myself. But this book sticks in my head, shaking my brain, refusing to let go.

I suspected that her verb choice gave the book much of its power. I did a “verb swipe,” as discussed in last week’s article, and, sure enough, power verbs, sprinkled lavishly, emerged.

Power Sentences

Image by Petra Bensted, via Flickr Commons

Then I wondered if additional power flowed from the structure of her sentences. Most of us, most of the time, write either simple sentences (a subject and a verb and one complete thought), compound sentences (two or more sentences stuck together with a conjunction such as “and”), complex sentences (a simple sentence and one or more dependent clauses [a subject and verb but no complete thought]), or a compound/complex sentence (two or more complete sentences and one or more dependent clauses). In fact, most people think no other sentence forms exist. Anything else is incorrect or too wordy or run-on.

But there are five more sentence types—power sentences that by their very form lend energy and force to the thought of the sentence.

1. Fragments

These one-word punctuation marks or short collections of words that do not qualify as a complete sentence can be used in several ways. As an exclamation point. To artfully punch home a point. Or to give people a chance to breathe. Concise. Powerful. Effective. Mutel writes: “Everything was up front. Hunger. Laughter. Anger and tears. Intense preoccupation. Young lives lived with passion and direction.” Every sentence but the first is a fragment. Totally appropriate when describing growing boys.

2. Balanced Sentences

These sentences divide the world into two parts: good and bad, right and wrong, this or that, or good and better. They have a cadence to them—a rhythm, a poetic feel. I look in Mutel’s prose for examples, and they appear. “Instead, this year we seem to swing between very hot gray days with storms and chilly gray days with storms.” Mutel uses parallel syntax to create a this or that swing, giving the sentence strength.

Mutel ends chapter ten with a plaintive sentence that contains a balanced part: “Is this indeed the case, I ask myself, or are there things we all could, we all should, be doing? Is there still hope?” 

3. Serial Sentences

The serial sentence is like the balance in that it has parts with parallel structure and a recognizable cadence. Your ears hear and respond to the parallel parts. Something about the number three communicates reasonableness, thoughtfulness, rationality. Perhaps it has to do with “thesis, antithesis, synthesis,” or maybe it evokes a syllogism. However it works, research confirms that people are more apt to think of something as reasonable or thoughtful or rational if the sentence has three rhythmic parts. If you add a fourth part or more, readers pick up a subconscious message of excess, plethora, over-the-top, thus taking your thought out of the realm of reasonable and into the realm of overabundance, even absurdity.

Mutel describes the inevitable progression of her mother’s cancer with these two sentences that, when combined, create a four part series rhythm. “Mom’s strength declines. Her breath slows, her body shrivels even more, her limbs become more skeletal.” There is nothing reasonable about a young mother dying of cancer. Four parts drives home the overwhelming-ness of this situation.

And note this sentence near the end of the book: “Not as a lover of the natural world, with all its delight and diversity. Not as a mother. Not as a grandmother. Not on my watch. Not without a fight.

4. Cumulative Sentences

When I was a graduate student in writing and was introduced to the cumulative sentence, my writing exploded. I loved its freedom, beginning as it does with the main clause, then flowing on, perhaps describing the main character, possibly showing the reader an action, maybe delving into an idea, digging into its arguments, checking their references, trying to understand the complexity of the thought, thoughts that by their very nature are abstract. As I wrote, the cumulative pulled me into my senses, inviting me to visualize the scene I was describing, nudging me to note the way my character moved, encouraging me to delve into her thoughts, to explore how she felt, and to pass this information on to my reader.

The cumulative is a form uniquely qualified to communicate Mutel’s message. Note her second sentence: “Our three boys were rooted and raised here, roving the woods in search of baby squirrels, chasing toads as they leapt through the leaves, discovering insects and cocoons tucked into the crevices of bark, damming the rivulet below our house with sticks, and following that trickle down to Sugar Creek, which is large enough for a youngster’s fishing expedition.”

Feel the energy of power verbs in that sentence. Because a cumulative is often built with phrases that begin with a verbal (in this case: roving, chasing, discovering, damming, following), this sentence form has wide-open potential for tapping into the power of verbs in addition to its own free-wheeling message.

5. Suspended Sentences

The reader of a suspended sentence is held in suspense until the end. For instance, Elie Wiesel writes: “Stretched out on a plank of wood amid a multitude of blood-covered corpses, fear frozen in his eyes, a mask of suffering on the bearded, stricken mask that was his face, my father gave back his soul at Büchenwald.”

Commenting on such a powerful sentence, on such a work of art, is sacrilege. But to understand its power, put the last independent clause first and break the sentence up into four parts. Read it out loud, and you will see how much power it loses.

From A Sugar Creek Chronicle, “…but that day, glancing at the white cement building where she lies, picking out the exact window she would be looking through if her eyes could see, unable to reply to my father, I weep.” Or this one: “But now, looking back at the years when the boys were young, trying to remember what those times felt like, I create an idyllic scene:” In the first sentence, Mutel writes three verb-based phrases pulling us down to the subject and verb, “I weep.” In the second, she creates suspense by putting two participial phrases that modify “I” at the front of the sentence.

Suspended sentences are the stock and trade of mystery writers, for reasons that must be apparent, but the form is also an artful choice whenever a writer wants to save the punch of a sentence until the end. 

Sentence Power: A careful choice of sentence form can dramatically improve your prose, enhancing the energy of any subject.

For my final two articles, I am going to graze in the fertile fields of metaphor.