This week, Alida, Robert, & Kathryn discuss what makes a great sentence. There’s probably more to it than you’d think. We start off with a surprise—at least we surprised ourselves: it was a harder to find great sentences than we expected it to be. What’s the difference between a great sentence and a great book?
VIDEO
AUDIO
SHOW NOTES
What did we find when we set out to find great sentences? Is it all about the grammar? We talk about the categories a sentence can fit into, and why looking at the paragraph and sentence level is so important in your writing. We look at a couple of sentences from The Passion and Unaccustomed Earth. FInally, we talk about long sentences, poetic sentences, and use of metaphorical sentences to spice up your writing!
What we talked about:
What did we find while looking for sentences? (1:14)
The categories Alida found sentences fit in to. (4:30)
Why looking at your paragraph and sentence level is so important. (5:58)
Did we find any bad sentences? (8:37)
Our first sentence from The Passion. (13:38)
Our second sentence from Unaccustomed Earth. (18:00)
How to watch for too much sentence similarity, or too many metaphorical sentences. (23:43)
When should you use complicated, multi-clause sentences? (29:33)
LINKS
Things we mentioned:
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri