This week on the Story Works Round Table, Alida, Robert, and Kathryn continue to explore what makes a sentence great. We discuss lyrical prose, surprising readers with a sentence-level twist, the use of evocative verbs and adjectives, show don’t tell, “wow” sentences that make you stop and re-read, and a dip into multiple POVs and how the voice of your sentences must vary according to the POV. We also touch on how genre shapes sentences, or the voice of a work, and so much more!
VIDEO
AUDIO
SHOW NOTES
If you haven’t checked out the first two parts of this conversation, check out part one and part two before you go on!
How can you use a sentence to evoke mood? What about varying sentence structure to reflect different characters voice? Should you change your sentence structure by genre? Or by book? We all agree, reading great sentences make yours better!
What we talked about:
Sentence from Reflections in the Eye of a Raven and a discussion of evocative text. (0:42)
Sentence from the Poisonwood Bible and a discussion of the narrators voice and sentence structure. (7:11)
How should you change your sentences based on genre or other considerations? (12:47)
How to construct sentences according to voice. (15:25)
Sentence from The Great Gatsby. (19:26)
Why did we find it so hard to find great sentences? (25:10)
LINKS
Things we mentioned:
Desert Notes by Barry Lopez
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Truth by Peter Temple
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King
Want more about these topics? Check out:
SWRT 114 Writing Great Sentences Part 1
SWRT 115 Writing Great Sentences Part 2
