The beauty of long sentences in your memoir

 

Last week I encouraged you to take a break, from time to time, from composing your stories. By looking over your memoir’s sentences, you can give yourself a breather while still making progress toward your finished memoir.  

 

A week ago, we began looking at your memoir’s sentences: The way you write them can enhance your readers’ (a) enjoyment and (b) their understanding of your message.

 

Specifically, we considered writing short sentences and sentence fragments for impact and punch. (Click on “Sentences are a little like purses” if you missed it.)

 

This week, think about this:

 

You also want to vary sentence length:

Write both short, simple sentences

and long, complex ones.

 

This is how Joseph F. Williams explains it:

 

“A clear and concise sentence is a singular achievement, a whole passage of them even more so. But if all your sentences were so concise that they never exceeded 20 words, you’d be like a pianist who could play only a few notes at a time. . . .

 

“A competent writer must therefore know both how to write clear short sentences, and how to combine those short sentences into one that is longer and more complex, but just as concise and just as easy to understand.” (Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace)

 

“There’ll always be a place for the short sentence,” Pico Iyer says, praising “compressed wisdom” and “elegant conciseness,” but he also says “. . . The long sentence opens up the very doors that a short sentence simply slams shut.”

 

Iyer describes a well-crafted long sentence as “. . . the collection of clauses . . . many-chambered and lavish and abundant in tones and suggestions. . . .”

 

“I cherish [famous writer] Thomas Pynchon’s prose . . .  not just because it’s beautiful, but because his long, impeccable sentences take me, with each clause, further from the normal and predictable, and deeper into dimensions I hadn’t dared contemplate. . . .

 

“The promise of the long sentence is that it will take you beyond the known, far from shore, into depths and mysteries you can’t get your mind, or most of your words, around. . . .

 

“When I feel the building tension as Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ swells with clause after biblical clause of all the things people of his skin color cannot do—I feel as if I’m stepping out on the crowded, overlighted fluorescent culture of my local convenience store and being taken up to a very high place from which I can see across time and space, in myself and in the world.” (Pico Iyer, “The Writing Life: The point of the long and winding sentence”)

 

Next week we’ll look at long sentences again.

 

Between now and then,

look over your rough drafts

and experiment with writing both short sentences

and long sentences.

 

Then read them aloud

and see how they sound.

Keep in mind what Collette and Johnson said,

“. . . Arrange, rearrange, or prearrange them

to suit particular purposes.”

(Finding Common Ground)

 

The beauty of long sentences in your memoir

 

Last week we began looking at your memoir’s sentences: The way you write them can enhance your readers’ (a) enjoyment and (b) their understanding of your memoir’s message.

Specifically, we considered writing short sentences and sentence fragments for impact and punch. (Click on “Sentences are a little like purses” if you missed it.)

While those can be effective, you’ll want to vary your sentence lengths—combine short with long sentences—throughout your piece.  

Here Gregory Ciotti comments on both short and long sentences: “The stamina of a long sentence can build a tense, winding climb to the climax; like a roller coaster slowly ascending to the summit. In contrast, the economical short sentence is best suited to drive home a revelation.

“In every instance, a short sentence brings momentum to a halt; the interruption must be used to make a statement with teeth. Repetition weakens impact, so you’ll only have a handful of opportunities in each piece. Make them count.” (Gregory Ciotti; emphasis mine)

“There’ll always be a place for the short sentence,” Pico Iyer says, praising “compressed wisdom” and “elegant conciseness,” but he also says, “The long sentence opens up the very doors that a short sentence simply slams shut.”

Iyer describes a well-crafted long sentence as “ . . . the collection of clauses . . . many-chambered and lavish and abundant in tones and suggestions. . . .”

“I cherish [famous writer] Thomas Pynchon’s prose . . . not just because it’s beautiful, but because his long, impeccable sentences take me, with each clause, further from the normal and predictable, and deeper into dimensions I hadn’t dared contemplate. . . . 

“The promise of the long sentence is that it will take you beyond the known, far from shore, into depths and mysteries you can’t get your mind, or most of your words, around. . . .

“When I feel the building tension as Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ swells with clause after biblical clause . . . I feel as if I’m stepping out of the crowded, overlighted fluorescent culture of my local convenience store and being taken up to a very high place from which I can see across time and space, in myself and in the world.” (Pico Iyer, “The WritingLife: The point of the long and winding sentence,” Special to the Los Angeles Times; emphasis mine)

Next week, we’ll look at long sentences again. Between now and then, look over your rough drafts and experiment with writing both short and long sentences. (Click here to review our recent post about writing short sentences.)

Set your writing aside for a few days and then read it aloud.

Be alert to how your sentences sound.

How do the strings of words feel to your lips and in your mouth? And in your ears and your brain? Your heart?

Reading aloud will help you discern when a sentence is clunky and awkward.

Rework those sentences so your readers will get your point, your meaning, your significance.

 

The beauty of long sentences in your memoir

Saturday we began looking at your memoir’s sentences: The way you write them can enhance your readers’ (a) enjoyment and (b) their understanding of your message.

Specifically, we considered writing short sentences and sentence fragments for impact and punch. (Click on “Sentences are a little like purses …” if you missed it.) 

You also want to vary sentence length: Write both short, simple sentences and long, complex ones.  

This is how Joseph F. Williams explains it:

“A clear and concise sentence is a singular achievement, a whole passage of them even more so. But if all your sentences were so concise that they never exceeded 20 words, you’d be like a pianist who could play only a few notes at a time.… A competent writer must therefore know both how to write clear short sentences, and how to combine those short sentences into one that is longer and more complex, but just as concise and just as easy to understand.” (Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace; emphasis mine)

“There’ll always be a place for the short sentence,” Pico Iyer says, praising “compressed wisdom” and “elegant conciseness,” but he also says “…We’ve got shortness and speed up the wazoo these days. The long sentence opens up the very doors that a short sentence simply slams shut.”

Iyer describes a well-crafted long sentence as “… the collection of clauses … many-chambered and lavish and abundant in tones and suggestions.…”

“I cherish [famous writer] Thomas Pynchon’s prose … not just because it’s beautiful, but because his long, impeccable sentences take me, with each clause, further from the normal and predictable, and deeper into dimensions I hadn’t dared contemplate.…

“The promise of the long sentence is that it will take you beyond the known, far from shore, into depths and mysteries you can’t get your mind, or most of your words, around.…

“When I feel the building tension as Martin Luther King’s ‘Letter from Birmingham Jail’ swells with clause after biblical clause of all the things people of his skin color cannot do—I feel as if I’m stepping out on the crowded, overlighted fluorescent culture of my local convenience store and being taken up to a very high place from which I can see across time and space, in myself and in the world.” (Pico Iyer, “The Writing Life: The point of the long and winding sentence,” Special to the Los Angeles Times; emphasis mine)

On Saturday we’ll look at long sentences again. Between now and then, look over your rough drafts and experiment with writing both short sentences and long sentences.

Then read them aloud and see how they sound. Remember what Collette and Johnson said, “… Arrange, rearrange, or prearrange them to suit particular purposes.” (Finding Common Ground)

“Sentences are a little like purses…”

“Sentences are a little like purses: They come in various sizes and can hold a little or a lot.” (Bill Roorbach, Writing Life Stories)

“Just as there are arts of weaving and fly-fishing and dancing, so there are arts of sentence making.

“…Writing is a partnership with the reader.… The way you put your sentences together counts a good deal toward how your reader will understand what you say.  

“You can … arrange, rearrange, or prearrange them to suit particular purposes.

“The writer shapes the sentence to indicate how readers should construe the meaning.… Building a sentence, then, is a way of defining and specifying meaning, of focusing a reader’s attention.…” (Collette and Johnson, Finding Common Ground)

Short Sentences:

“… In artful prose, [sentence] length is controlled and varied. Some stylists write short sentences to strike a note of urgency.” (Joseph F. Williams, Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace)

“… Short sharp sentences increase tension in a scene.” (Lynda R. Young)

Here’s how Kristen Welch writes short sentences to express tension and urgency:  

“She came to us alone, with a baby she didn’t want stirring in her womb.

“Orphaned at a young age, she wandered this earth unloved and unwanted.

“Charity came to us broken, detached, angry.

“Outwardly she pushed others away, isolating herself through pain, distancing her heart from love.

“But we loved her anyway. We set firm boundaries and we loved. We prayed. We fasted. We begged God to draw her close. We shed so many tears over this child having a child.

“We feared for her unborn son. How would this detached girl attach to a baby she never wanted?

“He was born to an angry mother. She didn’t want him.

“And we didn’t know what to do.…”  (Kristen Welch, We Are THAT Family

Consider writing short sentences here and there in your vignettes, but also think about writing sentence fragments—incomplete sentences and thoughts.

Grammatically, sentence fragments are incorrect, but “There are occasions when a sentence fragment can be stylistically effective, exactly what you want and no more. ‘Harrison Ford has said that he would be more than willing to take on another Indiana Jones project. In a New York Minute.’ As long as you are clearly in control of the situation, this is permissible, but [doing so] depends on the circumstances.” (CCC Foundation, emphasis mine) 

Breaking the rules occasionally with sentence fragments can add punch to your writing. Or sizzle. Or grief.

Wednesday we’ll look at long sentences but for now, examine your WIPs (works in progress—your rough drafts) for sentences you can modify. (Remember what dear old William Zinsser said, “Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the second or third time.”)

Where can you write “quick, breathless utterances” (Williams) to create tension, urgency, drama, or emotion?