Writing A (Very) Short Guide to Building Sentences

Zyflair

Yes, sir. Of course, sir.
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NOTE: The author dedicates this brief article to all writers, including the author as well, in hopes that they can use this work as a guideline for future writing.
NOTE2: Is it possible for me to insert this into the Guidelines for Successful Writing (http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=59126 )? Thanks.


Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Starting Simple
- Building Up
- The Three Ways
- Using Modifiers

The Introduction
If you are reading this (why did I even say this?), then great! This article is a straightforward suggestion of a particular method of building and improving sentences. If you have no need for such an article, then reading this will not be necessary.

Now that you know what I’m going to talk about (I hope), let’s actually talk about it.

Starting Simple
We all know the simple sentence. And if you don’t know what it is, then you have obviously seen it before. The simple sentence is a simple thing (noun/subject) that does a simple task (verb/predicate). For example:
PMJ said:
Mamoswine growled.
charidude said:
Josh tossed and turned.
Zyflair said:
I licked my paw.
These sentences are no doubt usually short, ranging normally from two words to no more than ten. It is the short length that gives concise brevity, which is – when used correctly – excellent for a written section. However, when you string so many of these simple sentences:
Anonymous said:
The bright blue sea rushed past my feet. I felt a calm feeling. I can’t remember what had exactly happened. Everything was a strange blur. A strange friendly voice slowly came towards me.
Something’s dreadfully lacking. The following passage leaves the reader not only hungry for detail, but just confused. The key lesson here? Excess amounts of short sentences are not beautiful to read and should – under 99.9% of all circumstances – be avoided.

Building Up
A key thing to notice about sentences is the way they convey information. For example:
PMJ said:
Giovanni, now feeling better with this new idea, continued to walk around the room, rather aimlessly, Persian still following him.
Here’s what we get from this sentence:
- Giovanni feels better.
- He feels better because of this new idea.
- He’s still walking around the room.
- He’s not walking towards a specific place.
- Persian is still following Giovanni.

These ideas - called propositions – are the building blocks to every sentence and it is how the writer adds on these propositions to a sentence where the reader understands what the writer is talking about.

So let’s add propositions to sentences. There are three main ways, and one I would like to get into real depth.

The Three Ways
Take a simple sentence:
“They slept.”

We can add to the sentence by using a conjunction to attach another idea to it:
“They slept, and the glimmering stars in the night sky watched over them.

By adding relative phrases that use “that,” “who,” “which,” and so on:
“They, who are finally assured that the fire would not go out, slept in the campsite that remained a safe haven from all creatures lurking about.”

Or by adding free modifiers:
“They slept, nervously fidgeting with worries about the final exam taking place tomorrow.

Free modifiers is the best method out of all three. The sentence with free modifiers flow, conveying each idea in a timewise fashion, moving the reader along the sentence until he or she hits the period. Take one of my sentences and note how I broke each phrase into timely sections:

Zyflair said:
Stealthily,
twisting my path through the maze of obstacles,
making sure not a single enemy was in patrol,
assuring that the target did not move,
I closed in,
my paws –
with their experience –
silently lurking through,
my body keeping out of sight as much as possible.
Notice the bolded part. It’s the simple sentence, still simple. There’s nothing so complicated about that bolded part. A good and long sentence does not have complicated parts, just a simple ones put together with modifiers.

Using Modifiers
Now it’s your turn. Start with any simple sentence… say:
“I like to eat breakfast.”
And think of several ideas you would wish to add to it. Such as:
- My favorite kind of breakfast is bacon.
- A good breakfast starts my day off right.

With modifiers, you get:
“Starting my day off right, I enjoy eating a good breakfast, choosing bacon over the rest of other morning meals.”

Note that using modifiers takes time and practice, and sometimes ideas differ to the point where connecting them doesn’t seem right. But once you get the hang of it, try to advance with even more ideas into a sentence, and watch how your details fly over and dazzle the reader.

Key thing about this whole article: Start small and simple, then work your way up from there. That's all to it!

I apologize for such a short article, but this is something that I hope you can consider, for a detailed story requires a detailed paragraph, which requires a detailed sentence.

~Zyflair
 
Very good and helpful, Zyflair. I will certainly use it for guidelines in and out of Pokebeach (not as in copy this and credit as my own because you'll sue me). Also, sorry for going of topic earlier.

EDIT: Lol. First Post.
 
Zyflair said:
Now that you what I’m going to talk about (I hope), let’s actually talk about it.

How ironic.

Decent article, but similar to that Spelling/Grammar guide; near useless.

dmaster out.
 
Good for newbies, near-useless to the rest of us.

Decent guide, overall, and I commend you for furthering the good use of the English Language.
 
d master342 said:
How ironic.
Ok, so proof-reading isn't my forte. >_<

PokeChamp said:
Good for newbies, near-useless to the rest of us.
Says the person that decided to begin one of his fanfics with a semicolon when the correct punctuation is a colon. XD
PokeChamp said:
I started off like most Trainers; Easily impressed, and hopelessly inexperienced.
EDIT: Oh, and you have a comma splice again. XD

I just want to have some more sentence variety so even though you deem it useless, your subconscious will pull this out and use it, and I'll win in the end. >=D

Thanks for the comments!
~Zyflair
 
Good article. I think this will help more elsewhere than in pokebeach fan fics. I have a lot I want to add. If you accept help, I'll post some of the stuff I think you should add.
 
Depends. This article is about only sentences. If you have a different topic of composition you're going to talk about, I wouldn't add it in here.
 
Zyflair said:
Ok, so proof-reading isn't my forte. >_<

PokeChamp said:
Good for newbies, near-useless to the rest of us.
Says the person that decided to begin one of his fanfics with a semicolon when the correct punctuation is a colon. XD
PokeChamp said:
I started off like most Trainers; Easily impressed, and hopelessly inexperienced.
EDIT: Oh, and you have a comma splice again. XD

I just want to have some more sentence variety so even though you deem it useless, your subconscious will pull this out and use it, and I'll win in the end. >=D

Thanks for the comments!
~Zyflair

My subconscious will never be yours, Zyflair. >:O

Also, I must say I disagree with your comment on my fanfic. While I do think a comma could be used in that sentence, I not believe that it is necessarily incorrect to place a semi-colon there. I'm not sure what you mean by "coma-splice", either.
 
/me facepalms and silently notes the irony that she's talking to someone that wrote a poem in dedication to punctuation.

Semicolons are used to connect two closely related sentences together. "Easily impressed, and hopelessly inexperienced" is not a whole sentence. A colon is the correct usage since it lists the traits of a Trainer that just "started off" is like.

Comma splice is the misuse of a comma, placing it where it shouldn't be. A comma is not needed when you're only listing two items.
 
Zyflair said:
* Zyflair facepalms and silently notes the irony she's talking to someone that wrote a poem in dedication to punctuation.

Semicolons are used to connect two closely related sentences together. "Easily impressed, and hopelessly inexperienced" is not a whole sentence. A colon is the correct usage since it lists the traits of a Trainer that just "started off" is like.

Comma splice is the misuse of a comma, placing it where it shouldn't be. A comma is not needed when you're only listing two items.

Lol, "she?"

I guess that when I think about it like that, my use of the semi-colon was poor and I thank you warmly for letting me know of my critical grammar error, Zyfalir.

However, I do not misuse commas. Unless you were too use a post against me that was ancient and relating to my noob days, I dare say I have never misused a comma. However, I do not wish to purse my comma argument with anymore, because I do not think that I will be capable of changing your opinion, nor you capable of changing mine.
 
There you go again:
PokeChamp said:
I guess that when I think about it like that, my use of the semi-colon was poor and I thank you warmly for letting me know of my critical grammar error, Zyfalir.
You have a compound sentence using a conjunction, requiring you to place a comma before the conjunction. But here you are, missing it, saying the above quote instead of:
I guess that when I think about it like that, my use of the semi-colon was poor, and I thank you warmly for letting me know of my critical grammar error, Zyflair.

Of course, I'm not getting anywhere by harping on someone that claims to obsess over punctuation on his punctuation, so I'll leave it at that.

But I win. XD
 
Zyflair said:
There you go again:You have a compound sentence using a conjunction, requiring you to place a comma before the conjunction. But here you are, missing it, saying the above quote instead of:
I guess that when I think about it like that, my use of the semi-colon was poor, and I thank you warmly for letting me know of my critical grammar error, Zyflair.
Of course, I'm not getting anywhere by harping on someone that claims to obsess over punctuation on his punctuation, so I'll leave it at that.

But I win. XD

You win the battle, Zyflair, but not the war. It appears I have overlooked my grammatical usage... I shall have to perfect it. When I do, you will hear from me again, Zyflair.

Good day to you, kind sir!
 
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