VARYING STRUCTURE TO IMPROVE WRITING Sentence Variety: Structure

First, take a look at this paragraph The platypus is the oddest mammal. It has a duckbill instead of a nose. It has sensors inside its duckbill. Those sensors allow it to forage and hunt for food. The platypus has spurs in its two hind legs. The male platypus has poison in the spurs. Female platypus lays eggs. The female platypus lactates through her skin to feed her young. Platypuses are ornery, territorial mammals.  Notice anything?

I’ll give you a hint… All of the sentences are structured in the exact same way: Subject, Verb, Object. Subject, Verb, Object. There is no rise or fall in the tension of the language: the sentences don’t urge the reader forward. They just seem to sit there on the page. The paragraph drags on and on. Although the common active voice sentence structure is Subject Verb Object, a writer can use phrases and clauses to create variety and interest in their active writing.

Types of phrases and clauses that might help Adjective clause: modifies a noun or pronoun  Usually introduced by a relative pronoun: who / whom / that / which / whoever / whomever.  The bear who was looking out his window began to wonder about life in the wild.  That mustache, which is scraggly at best, looks like an eyebrow from here.

Types of phrases and clauses that might help Adverbial clause: any clause that modifies a verb by expressing the cause, comparison, condition, manner, result or time of the verb.  Here are some signal words or phrases: as / as if / rather than / although / even if / except that / if only / if / in case / where / wherever / so / after / unless / as soon as / before / since / until / till / whenever / still  As soon as your brother returns we can leave.  In case there is an emergency, I have left you my cell phone number

The active voice pattern is highlighted in green Infinitive phrases can be adjectival and adverbial  Adjectival: Those mice are working together to hijack this hayride!  Adverbial: Brian was doomed to look awkward for two more weeks, or until his hair grows back. Prepositional phrases can be adjectival and adverbial  Adjectival: Those girls in the next room are too loud.  Adverbial: The handsome cab rode past in a flash of white. Notice how the italicized phrases—working as adjectives and adverbs—give the sentences extra information or action?

Let’s go back and revise that platypus paragraph The platypus is the oddest animal. Even though it lays eggs it is still considered a mammal because it lactates through its skin to feed its young. Rather than a nose, it has a duckbill made of cartilage. Inside the duckbill is a cluster of sensors that allow the platypus to forage and hunt for food. Although both males and females have spurs on their hind legs, only the spurs on the male platypuses have poison inside. Ornery and territorial, male platypuses will fend off any intruders.

Wasn’t that better?! With a few inversions—such as in the final sentence—and a few adjectives and adverbs, the same active voice paragraph comes alive. Suddenly the reader can see just how odd the platypus is to the writer!  The writer has set up a pattern of contrasting the normal characteristics of a mammal with those of a platypus:  “instead of a nose it has a duckbill”  “instead of a live birth, it lays eggs”