#167, Prose
“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
-Gary Provost
Good prose has a wonderful lyricism to it. Just like the beat of a catchy pop song, its rhythm and words can lodge themselves into our memory. One element of beautiful writing is varied sentence length. Gary Provost, an author, illustrates this concept with great simplicity in the quote above. Sentences of the same length are monotonous and dull. One brief sentence after another makes one's writing childish. Sentences that are all lengthy are tiresome. However, when the author varies the length of their sentences—something wonderful happens.
To complete this Journal response,
- Write a structured response according to the sentence lengths below. Follow them precisely. You may start with a phrase like "I write", or "I create", or "I cook" or in any other way you choose.
- TWO words (first sentence)
- NINE words (second sentence...)
- ONE word
- THREE words
- NINE words
- FOUR words
- SEVEN words
- FIFTY-FOUR words (last sentence)
- Comment on a peer's response.
-Brenden Lee Teacher
ride through life with me, like a sidecar, while I busy myself making motorcycle metaphors