MAKE YOUR WRITING SING!

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 For most of my life I’ve been a veracious reader, sometimes balancing three or four books at one time. So great was the satisfaction I received from reading that when people asked me if I liked to read I would jokingly respond, “I don’t read books—I eat them!” Whenever I ran out of reading material, I’d literally go into withdrawal until I could get to a bookstore or library for my next fix.

Naturally when I first attempted to write, I assumed that after years of digesting wonderfully-written books my words would flow out effortlessly in a pleasing, rhythmic manner. Not so. I discovered that writing well was harder than I had imagined. I knew what I wanted to say but my writing sounded flat. Monotonous. Even boring! What, I wondered, was I doing wrong?

Then one day I stumbled upon a book that pointed me back to the basic rules of grammar, particularly the four different types of sentence structures. When these various structures are mixed together within a paragraph, the result is a symphony of words that create a melody to the reader’s ear. I like to call this “musical writing.” Here is a list of these four sentence structures:

• Simple sentence: has one independent clause.
     Amy reads novels.
• Compound sentence: has two independent clauses.
     Amy reads novels but Sandra reads poetry.
• Complex sentence: has one dependent clause joined to an independent clause.
     Although Amy reads novels, Sandra reads poetry.
• Compound Complex sentence: has two independent clauses joined to one or more dependent clauses.
     Sandra reads poetry, but Amy reads novels because poetry is too difficult to understand.

What an exciting transformation this simple rule creates when applied to any genre of writing! Give it a try and make your writing sing!

TIP:
An independent clause contains a subject and a verb and is a complete thought. A dependent clause may contain a subject and a verb, but no complete thought.


Recommended Reading: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White