A Sentence is a Word Team. Write better sentences.

Awkward!! Some groups of people work well together, and some just do not. An effective team has the right number of people for the right jobs. For example: one leader, one scribe, one artist and a runner can make a good team, but they all have to work together. When too many try to do the same thing, it is just awkward. Sentences are filled with words that need to work as a team.

Spot the bad teams. What needs changing? BAD: She walked quietly up the lushly brightly carpeted big stairs. (too many….?) BETTER: She walked quietly up the bright, lushly carpeted stairs. BAD: He tromped down the stairs then he lumbered to the door then he lurched out the door. (Too many…..?) BETTER: He lurched down the stairs and out the door. BAD: He was really big and very tall with a lot of long black hair and a big moustache and long beard. (too many….?) BETTER: He was a large man with a thick head of hair, bushy moustache and long beard. BAD: She looked really mean, her eyes were really very mean and her nose was too pointy and sharp. (Too many… ?) BETTER: She had mean looking eyes and a pointy nose.

Pacing Some things are not comfortable. Like hard chairs. And Chinese mattresses. And too many short sentences. Other things get tiresome, like sentences that go on forever and ever and never seem to stop so you feel like you run out of breath when you a reading them and it just gets painful so you want so to just scream stop now!

The long and the short of it…. For a sharp effect short is good. To add impact a few short sentences can work. Short sentences can make you stop and think. However for slowing down the pace, or sometimes for creating a special atmosphere long sentences can be great. Good creative writing will have a mix of sentence lengths.

How does sentence length help the story in this paragraph? The car was still on full throttle. Joey’s breath was tight in his chest. The 60 degree was straight ahead. Joey timed it carefully, lifted of the pedal and slid around the bend. He gave it all he could down the long straight ahead, grateful for the bit of time to plan how best to take the big S bend he knew was coming up.

Can we write these better? The man was short and bald. He wore a dark coat. He also wore a red bow tie and a funny hat. She went to the door. She opened the door and saw the man there. He was really tall, he was too tall to walk in the door without bending down. He had a big red beard and big red eyebrows. Ann decided he was quite scary. It was hot. It was late in the day. The sun still poured over the hills. Everyone was too hot to move. They all wished they had a pool but there was not pool so they got hot and sweaty and it was very uncomfortable.

Redundancies When too many people in a team are trying to do the same job, some become redundant. They are not needed any more. The same rule applies for too many words in a sentence that do the same job.

Examples That is a self portrait of himself by himself. It was a sudden and unexpected surprise. She was still alive just hours before she died. The time was 12 o’clock. The ball was a red color. It was past history. The gunman was armed.

Just for fun… why it good to check your work carefully!

This would make adoption easy.

Another whoops.. A double negative.

Finally… a reminder that commas are important!