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Sentence starters: Editor's Notes #427
October 09, 2024
Hello,

How a sentence starts can dictate how it will end and/or limit what it may contain – the stage is set in the beginning, so take some time to look at your sentence starters as anchor points for information. Are they causing you to lose opportunities for a more involving, imaginative read?
—Jocelyn Pruemer


In this issue:

1. Sentence starters
2. Tickled my funny bone
3. Interesting Web site
4. Writing prompt

1.Sentence starters
I routinely tell clients to read their work aloud because hearing the words instead of simply reading them silently often uncovers problems of at least logic or grammar or rhythm. Recently I read an article that advocated reading just the beginnings of sentences to avoid too much repetition of structure and to open the gate to richer writing because the start of a sentence determines how it must go on.

Let’s get a counter argument out of the way up front. In English speech, the simple sentence rules. Subject followed by verb, sometimes followed by object. This is a great way to provide information. If that’s what you are doing in a passage, a series of simple sentences could be best. In most narratives, that is exactly what the writer is doing most of the time, so don’t worry if most of your sentences follow that pattern.

Occasionally, an action section needs the speed of very short sentences, sentence fragments, or even a single-syllable word to mimic short sharp movement.

Alternatively, a rippling rhythm echos the words that sets a bucolic scene in a meadow or at a riverside.

Compound sentences help make a contrast clearer with the conjunction but, while and adds information that is equal in some way.

Complex sentences, made of independent and dependant clauses, set up the a wider range of relationships between clauses.

Complex-compound sentences allow for even more complexity of thought. That does not mean that only complex-compound sentences can express these relationships. I taught five- and six-year-olds for decades, and I explained many complicated concepts without such sentences.

My goal here is to give you an additional lens, one that I discovered recently, to view your own writing with an eye to becoming more intentional when making choices about how to construct your sentences.

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2.Tickled my funny bone
A backward poet writes inverse.

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3. Interesting Web site
For a grammatical look at sentence structure, click the link here.
https://www.englishcurrent.com/grammar/sentence-structures-simple-compound-complex-compound-complex/

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4. Writing prompt
Rewrite these sentences using a different sentence structure. Refer to the link under Interesting Web site above for an explanation of different sentence structures. You may add to or subtract from the information in the original sentence.
  • Barry walked into the shoe store.
  • Who knocked?
  • Under the bridge, rats took command
  • The rain began, and a rainbow appeared.
  • Susan ran away when no one was looking.
  • Toby took the day off because of illness, but the employer still paid.


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