Writing Sentences With Impact COLUMN BY JON GINGERICH NOVEMBER 9, 2011
How many times have you encountered a writer who had great ideas and a knack for compelling characters, but just didn’t use the rights words to say it all? Yeah, me too. If there’s anything that makes me cringe about my old writing and there’s a lot! it was my misunderstanding of what makes a good sentence. "ooking back, my work was pocked with ambiguous adjectives, crooked constructions, and an annoying knack for saying in twenty words what could have been said in five. #y early stories read like I wanted to convince people I was smart $ and this always conveys the opposite effect, trust me $ instead of being truly smart by using psychology to create impact with shorter, more powerful sentences. It took years to reali%e that instead of compelling readers I’d been writing sentences that had alienated them, that I was dropping syntactical speed bumps that were slowing down my stories. Hopefully I can save you some trouble. &onsider this column a guide to writing more active, more immediate, more urgent sentences. Here’s a few tips on ho w you can rely on the sensory and the specific to grab readers’ attention and make them remember what you’ve written.
Restrict use of passive voice 'eliance on passive voice is one of the most common problems I see in (sleepy) writing, simply because it’s so pervasively ingrained in written culture. *e’re a world raised on +hakespeare we study writers who were masters of form but probably a bit -spergersy in their da ytoday communicative communicative endeavors. "ook, there’s nothing wrong with passive voice. In fact, it’s the default for research papers, legal briefs, technical writing, journalism, and pretty much all (formal) letters, be it (classic) literature or correspondences to a colleague. /ut its formality often renders it pointlessly baro0ue in fiction it softens the sentences. #y advice is this1 if you’re l ooking for impact, skip the ruffled pantaloons and go straight for the gut. In case you’re unaware, passive voice is a sentence that describes a subject receiving an action. In an active voice, the subject performs the action. - typical passive sentence would be (2he ball was thrown by 2om.) 2om.) -n active version of the same sentence would be (2om threw the ball.) +ee the difference? 2he active voice follows the standard (verbal) rule of subjectverbobject. In the passive voice, the object becomes the subject, so the formula becomes objectverbsubject, with the verb taking the past participle form.
Passive: 2he men were told by their sergeant to march.
Active: 2he sergeant told his men to march. -ctive voice is a superior superior communicative tool because because it does just that $ it describes describes action. 2he object takes takes a backseat to the verb committed by the subject. 3erbs entice the senses they provoke readers to see action. *hen readers see action, they’re much more likely to feel an empathetic connection with the sentence and thus, the story. In passive voice, the (responsibility) of the action is removed from the subject to some other agent. 2he use of active and passive voice is a matter of emphasis1 passive makes the subject emphatic active places emphasis on the action. -nother way of thinking about it is that passive describes, while action performs. 4assive is rhetorical. -ctive is pathological. 4assive is objective. -ctive is personal. 4assive is formal. -ctive is informal. 4assive is written. -ctive is verbal.
Passive: 2hat book was written by me.
Active: I wrote that book.
Passive: 2he factory employs her.
Active: +he works at the factory.
Passive: 'oom service is provided by the hotel.
Active: 2he hotel provides room service. 4assive voice can be useful when you want to call attention to the effect an action has on the subject. #any also find passive voice (mystifying,) so it sets a suitable stage for dream se0uences and flashbacks. +o, feel free to use passive voice alongside the active, but remember to use it sparingly.
Get specic 5or some beginning writers, there6s this bewildering assumption that 7good7 writing means obfuscating your story, that advanced storytelling somehow entails making fundamentals abstract. &ontrary to popular belief, purposefully leaving out essential details does not make you sound more (literary.) It just alienates your reader. -void abstraction in your writing, and e0ually avoid summary. 8et concrete. 8et specific. 8et to the point. +pecificity should especially be used in description. 2his is the stuff metaphor was made for, because the writer can go beyond descriptive synta9 and instead offer a corollary that whittles the image down to a finetuned anomaly. &ompare these two sentences1 “
2he woman had red hair.)
(2he woman had red hair like an old barn door.) *hich sentence casts a better visual? 2he second sentence offers a more specific, visually alluring description that asks the reader to conjure a certain image, and in this case, a litany of cultural adjuncts. +peaking of visually alluring, remember to entice the senses. *e’re a species that learns everything from empirical data the sensory is the gateway to empathy. *hat does something look like? -gain, get specific. &lose your eyes, see the scene and look for details. 2hen write it out. /ecause writing transcends the visual however, description shouldn6t be limited to the visual. #ake sure to engage all of the senses. :escribe the way a house smells, the sounds it makes. *hen you entice the senses an interesting thing happens1 you’re not simply describing a scene for readers, you’re making them participants in it.
Reduce modiers 'emember1 readers want action, not summary of action. Your writing is going to be a lot more effective if you employ wellfitting and appropriate nouns and verbs in your description instead of a barrage of t wocent adjectives and adverbs.
"ook, if you write an engaging work of fiction we’ll know you’re smart. You don’t have to elucidate your perfidious erudition. If that l ast sentence doesn’t annoy you, there’s a problem. If there’s one thing you should spend an inordinate amount of time on when constructing your sentences $ and you should work hard at this $ it’s finding the right verbs that accurately, perfectly describe the action being committed. 2he best sentences aren’t the ones that make readers reach for the dictionary. 2he best sentences are the ones that make the reader reali%e you’ve said something they’ve always felt but have never been able to put into words.
Fine-tune your sentences Hey; +hort sentences demand readers6 attention. *hat they lack in poetic panache they make up in urgency. 8et rid of pointless constructives and idle words1 instead of saying (it seemed to be a gun,) write (it was a gun.) 'emove needless transitions between clauses like (however) and (nonetheless) whenever you can. Here’s another one1 I’ll bet your sentences probably don’t need the word (that) so many times. "ook out f or redundancies e.g., (He was an unmarried bachelor.)!. &ut down on 0ualifiers1 use metaphor and analogy, but use them sparingly. -dverbs should be approached with caution we like to think they refine action but they6re actually abstracting it. -lways ask yourself1 what could this sentence do without and still retain its intended meaning? 'efine your sentences for emphasis. 4sychology tells us the human brain looks for meaning at the end of a string of ideas. *hether you6re writing in passive or active voice, the most important element should go at the end of the sentence, then the front. Your least important ideas $ the interchangeables $ should reside in the middle. #ake sure to write in parallel structure. 2he ideas presented in a sentence should be delivered in e0ual proportion. 2he sentence 7He6d never had a dog before, let alone a do%en of them7 should be revised to say 7He6d never had a dog, let alone a do%en of them.7
Empoy the po!er of speech "isten to the phonetic 0ualities of verbs. *ords like (chirp) and (grind) sound incredibly similar to the actions they describe.
