Strategies for Variety

(Adapted from Purdue OWL)

For the next few days, we're going to develop some strategies for bringing your writing to life.  When a great of your sentences have the same structure and length, your writing can become boring for your readers.

Strategies:

1. Vary the rhythm of your writing by using a combination of short and long sentences

Long sentences work well for incorporating a lot of information, and short sentences can emphasize the big ideas.

STUDY THE MODEL:

Example:

The Winslow family visited Canada and Alaska last summer to find some native American art. In Anchorage stores they found some excellent examples of soapstone carvings. But they couldn't find a dealer selling any of the woven wall hangings they wanted. They were very disappointed when they left Anchorage empty-handed.

Revision:

The Winslow family visited Canada and Alaska last summer to find some native American art, such as soapstone carvings and wall hangings. Anchorage stores had many soapstone items available. Still, they were disappointed to learn that wall hangings, which they had especially wanted, were difficult to find. Sadly, they left empty-handed.2

2. Vary Sentence Openings

If too many sentences start with the same word, especially The, It, This, or I, prose can grow repetitive for readers, so changing opening words and phrases can be refreshing.

Read the following example and a few possible revisions. Then, try to come up with your own revisions by varying the sentence opener.

The biggest coincidence that day happened when David and I ended up sitting next to each other at the Super Bowl.

POSSIBLE REVISIONS:

• What are the odds that I would have ended up sitting right next to David at the Super Bowl?
• When I sat down at the Super Bowl, I realized that, by sheer coincidence, I was directly next to David.
• At the crowded Super Bowl, packed with 50,000 screaming fans, David and I ended up sitting right next to each other by sheer coincidence.

 

Now, find good examples of sentence variety in the first letter of "Letters to a Young Artist."

HW: Find a section from your draft that could use a healthy combination of varied sentence lengths. Rewrite the revision where there is empty space on your draft, or on a separate sheet of paper.  Also, find a section where you use the bland sentence openers repeatedly. Vary one of them. The revision can go right on the paper!