{"id":6392,"date":"2020-11-27T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-27T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/townhouse\/articles\/how-to-make-your-sentences-snap-crackle-and-pop\/"},"modified":"2020-11-27T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T13:00:00","slug":"how-to-make-your-sentences-snap-crackle-and-pop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/how-to-make-your-sentences-snap-crackle-and-pop\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make your sentences snap, crackle and pop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, as you know, I ran a big free self-editing webinar, which hundreds of you attended. There\u2019s always a lot to pick out of those things, but there\u2019s one little trick that I particularly want to call to your attention. From the feedback in the webinar, it\u2019s something that a lot of you don\u2019t know, but this is a trick that is incredibly easy to deploy and it always works.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, I\u2019d say you won\u2019t really achieve strong writing unless you know it and use it. Good, huh?<\/p>\n

OK. But before that, two things.<\/p>\n

One<\/strong>, the Penguin Random House colossus has just (and as expected) bought Simon & Schuster, so the Big 5 are dead. Long live the Big 4. That probably demands an email of contemplation in itself, but if so, that\u2019ll come next week. The immediate difference the news makes to your life? None at all. (The header image for this post is some S&S books by the way. They have plenty of big authors.)<\/p>\n

Two<\/strong>: folks, if you aren\u2019t a member of Jericho Writers yet, this is the best time ever to become one. Why? Because we are constantly adding to the joys of membership. More webinars. More courses. More access to literary agents. More events in the US. A wider range of speakers, a broader range of topics.<\/p>\n

Our aim, quite simply, is to go on doing more for you, and at no extra cost.<\/p>\n

But also: today is Black Friday<\/strong> and we\u2019re giving all this writerly goodness away for 30% less than normal<\/strong>. So:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. If you\u2019re thinking of joining us, this page<\/a> tells you more about membership benefits. My one promise? We\u2019re going to make things better than that page implies, because we\u2019re busy investing now for a ramped-up programme in 2021.<\/li>\n
  2. If you have a question, ask away. Our (unbelievably brilliant) customer service team will be on hand all weekend. Just contact info@jerichowriters.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/li>\n
  3. If you would like to join us, we\u2019ll be thrilled to welcome you. Just sign up here<\/a> and use the code ****** at checkout.<\/li>\n
  4. As a hello and welcome to new members, we\u2019re running an \u201cAsk Us Anything\u201d webinar on Monday 30 November. You can literally just turn up (for free, of course) and ask us anything about how Jericho works, how the industry works, or anything else. Registration (for members only) is via this page<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Right ho. Now back to self-editing, and I want you to start by considering this sentence:<\/p>\n

    The words sound lame even to Ted.<\/em><\/p>\n

    What do you think about that? For that matter, what do you think about this one?<\/p>\n

    I quicken my step, searching the undergrowth in case anyone jumps out at me.<\/em><\/p>\n

    And let\u2019s have a think about this one as well:<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s a smell of damp earth and rotting vegetation.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Now, ideally, you will actually pause reading to consider the sound and weight of those sentences in your head. If you encountered those sentences in your own manuscript, would you leave them or adjust them? And if you were going to make changes, what would you do?<\/p>\n

    And look: let me say right away that none of those sentences are calamitously bad. They\u2019re clear. They communicate their meaning. There\u2019s a bit of colour and interest in each one.<\/p>\n

    But they can all be improved, and improved easily, because the strongest location in any sentence is the very end. The second strongest location in the sentence is the very start. That means, you should try to give each sentence real weight in at least one of those places. With shorter sentences, the real kick \u2013 the purpose of the sentence \u2013 should come either first or last. Never in the middle.<\/p>\n

    With that rule in mind, let\u2019s look again at that first sentence:<\/p>\n

    The words sound lame even to Ted.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Pretty clearly, most of the ingredients in that sentence are a little dull. The one that isn\u2019t \u2013 the squeeze of lime that gives life to the whole sentence \u2013 is the word lame. But that word is buried away in the exact middle of the sentence, which is the least salient place to have it. So we need to rephrase the sentence as follows:<\/p>\n

    Even to Ted, the words sound lame.<\/em><\/p>\n

    And, bada-bing, the sentence springs to life. The phrase \u2018even to Ted\u2019 drained the energy out of the first version of the sentence. In the second version, they act as a tiny springboard into the rest of it. The word lame, which was lost before, now dazzles under the spotlight.<\/p>\n

    Now, OK, I recognise that\u2019s a tiny shift, but it also took about three seconds to do. Perform that same magic over the 10,000 sentences of your novel, and you\u2019ve made a really important difference \u2013 and done so easily.<\/p>\n

    Here\u2019s that second sentence again:<\/p>\n

    I quicken my step, searching the undergrowth in case anyone jumps out at me.<\/em><\/p>\n

    Now you can already see why I am going to object to the current structure. The first part of the sentence is fine \u2013 that word quicken is a nice introduction. But the out at me bit at the end is just a clutter of small, dull syllables.<\/p>\n

    One easy change would be to delete the at me. It adds nothing in terms of meaning. The sentence is definitely better without them.<\/p>\n

    But as soon as you start to think like that, a more radical notion suggests itself. What about just deleting the whole last part: in case anyone jumps out at me<\/em>? The scene, after all, is set in a narrow urban path at night. It\u2019s pretty clear why the protagonist would be anxious, so perhaps we don\u2019t need to spell it out. And if searching the undergrowth isn\u2019t quite clear enough, we can always give that a bit of extra weight, like this:<\/p>\n

    I quicken my step, anxiously scanning the undergrowth.<\/em><\/p>\n

    We\u2019ve deleted almost half the words from the original sentence, but we end up with something that is strong at the beginning and end (and, as it happens, in the middle too.) The slow hiss of deflation that affected the earlier version of the sentence is gone. And again, this change was easy. Notice a weak sentence ending. Start to trim it. Get a bit more radical. Boof! Done<\/em>. OK, that probably wasn\u2019t a three second change, it might have been a twenty second one, but it\u2019s still nice, easy, anyone-can-do-it editing. Apply that kind of improvement over a whole manuscript and, again, you\u2019ll make a massive difference.<\/p>\n

    I won\u2019t spend much time on the third sentence:<\/p>\n

    There\u2019s a smell of damp earth and rotting vegetation.<\/em><\/p>\n

    I\u2019ve adopted that example just to remind us that sentence beginnings matter as well as sentence endings. In particular, I want to warn you against any sentence that starts off with there is or there are. It\u2019s an easy crime to commit \u2013 my first drafts always have such sentences \u2013 but it\u2019s also a waste. You\u2019re putting the least colourful words in English at the very start of your sentence. You might as well just say \u2018Blah blah blah the smell of damp earth…\u2019<\/p>\n

    And again, it\u2019s easy to fix. The normal fix for a there is type sentence is just to make the thing you\u2019re talking about the subject of its own sentence \u2013 and using a better verb than is to do it. So we might end up with something like this:<\/p>\n

    A smell of damp earth and rotting vegetation floats over the path.<\/em><\/p>\n

    I don\u2019t absolutely love that solution \u2013 though it\u2019s definitely better than the previous version \u2013 because I\u2019m not sure we\u2019ve really nailed what the smell of damp earth is doing in the story. Why does it matter? Why is the character thinking about it or noticing it? Figuring that out will make the sentence better again.<\/p>\n

    But that\u2019s a different point. What matters here is that we\u2019ve moved A smell of damp earth to a prominent place in the sentence and we\u2019ve murdered the blandest of all possible sentence openings. In doing so \u2013 another benefit \u2013 we\u2019ve allowed ourselves to bring in a more interesting verb. And again, the basic change is incredibly easy and obvious once you start becoming alert to this sentence start \/ sentence ending issue.<\/p>\n

    Easy, huh? And powerful? A nice combination. Needless to say, and sad to say, most editing is a little more tricky than that.<\/p>\n

    That is it from me.<\/p>\n

    Or is it? I think we\u2019d prefer to edit that down to a simple: that\u2019s it<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    Have fun with your editing \u2013 and do join us, please. There\u2019s a huge amount to look forward to in 2021. A quick recap of what you need to know in the first comment underneath this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last week, as you know, I ran a big free self-editing webinar, which hundreds of you attended. There\u2019s always a lot to pick out of those things, but there\u2019s one little trick that I particularly want to call to your attention. From the feedback in the webinar, it\u2019s something that a lot of you don\u2019t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29292],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harrys-friday-email"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJericho Writers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/how-to-make-your-sentences-snap-crackle-and-pop\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to make your sentences snap, crackle and pop – Jericho Writers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last week, as you know, I ran a big free self-editing webinar, which hundreds of you attended. 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