Sentence Clinic
getting out the magnifying glass...
Starting in March 2023, we’ve run occasional Sentence Clinics in The 24-Hour Room Lounge. Members are invited to bring in a sentence they've been struggling with (and possibly also to share a little context, or the paragraph to which it belonged). They screen share, read aloud and offer their sentence up for the scrutiny of the group, including close reading, analysis and editing suggestions. We often spend two hours on this, about 20 minutes per sentence, discussing each clause and phrase, each verb, noun and adjective. Suggestions pour in over the chat and out loud, writers try out various edits in real time to see how they come out. In almost all cases the writers come up with versions they feel are more powerful than what they had at first, or at least a better understanding of exactly what they want their sentence to achieve.
What kinds of issues come up? The power of action, the curtailment of the verb to be, clarity, the specificity of imagery, assonance, alliteration, sibilance, meter and cadence. Especially in cases where people bring in their opening lines, it seems essential for the writer to maximize potential narrative energy — creating a beginning that poses a question or inspires curiosity in the reader.
So often in workshops, people talk about the big issues, plot, structure, the order of events that transpire, the characters that populate a story. All those things matter, hugely, but now and then it's good to take out a magnifying glass and look hard at the level of sentence. Not every sentence should be a gem — a setting is necessary to hold a jewel in place, after all — but some should, and the first sentence of a work on any scale is one of the best positions for a remarkable bit of prose.
Today, Thursday, January 2, 2025! you’re welcome to Join us for another Sentence Clinic. If you do and you want to submit a sentence, have ready a screen-shareable document with just your sentence (or possibly also the paragraph that contains it). We take volunteers, first come, first served, for two hours, from 4-6 pm ET.
If you’re busy today, You can find out when more Sentence Clinics and Craft Conversations on other topics will take place on our Craft Bulletin Board. You can also access hundreds of craft notes and non-prescriptive writing prompts in our Craft Library.
Or, try this sentence self-exam:
Identify your verbs. Are there instances – or more than one instance – of the verb to be? If so, can you eliminate any without losing content or replace them with more active words?
Are there repetitions? If so, are they intentional? Do they add anything to earn their keep, such as emphasis or lyricism?
Consider parallelism. Is there any? If so, make it sing. If it's faulty (the grammatical structures in parallel words or phrases don't match), repair it.
Is there an adjective pileup? Streamline. Be exacting with your modifiers.
Are your nouns the most specific ones you can use? Should child be girl? Leg, knee? Plant, cabbage?
Look at your prepositional phrases. Can any be eliminated or simplified? Perhaps In the morning could be covered by the word early?
Do you lead with the most important part of your sentence? If not, is there a reason for that?
What will the reader want to know next, after reading this one sentence? Consider whether you will immediately fulfill their yearning or withhold satisfaction and understanding till later? If you're withholding, how will you handle the reader's possible frustration?
Good writing!
— Elizabeth Gaffney and The 24-Hour Room