Relationships & Partners and Writing Skills Tips. (A Writing Advice Guide Book

Sentence Variety

Sentence Variety Lessons

In becoming a skilled writer, the importance of sentence variety cannot be underestimated. By learning to change the rhythm, length, and structure of your sentences, you gain mastery over your writing, creating depth and nuance. Let's take a look at two strategies for creating sentence variety.

Sentence Patterns

Here's an experiment: Find one of your essays or stories and calculate the percentage of sentences beginning with a subject followed by a verb. Don't be surprised if your answer is in the 70%-90% range. This is because the most common sentence pattern is the subject-verb pattern. Here's an example:
- The rhino charged the car.

Rhino is the subject, and charged is the verb. Unfortunately, many writers never go beyond this subject-verb pattern. Thus, their writing becomes predictable and flat. Let's explore some sentence pattern alternatives by rewriting the opening of the above sentence. Read each of the examples out loud.

- Enraged, the rhino charged the car. [Adjective.]
- Despite its docile personality, the rhino charged the car. [Prepositional phrase.]
- Because the man shouted, the rhino charged the car. [Dependent clause.]

Notice that each sentence pattern produces a different rhythm. Also, note how the subject and verb still remain adjacent to each other in these examples. Now let's look at a couple of examples when the subject and verb are separated.

- The rhino, enraged, charged the car.
- The rhino, despite its docile personality, charged the car.

As you can see, there are lots of possibilities for sentence patterns. We have seen only a few. Be sure to pay attention to sentence patterns when you revise your work.

Sentence variety also includes sentence length. Too many short sentences or too many long sentences make for dull reading. Long sentences are usually preferable for lists or descriptions, and a variety of sentence patterns will add rhythm to long sentences. Short sentences are normally more emphatic. After establishing a rhythm with longer sentences, a short statement adds drama and force. Study the following paragraph. Notice the variety of sentence patterns and sentence length.
Undisciplined and mischievous, the puppy was trouble from day one. Ruben decided a trip to the wilderness would help sober the pup. But the moment they began hiking, the puppy broke free. Desperately, Ruben chased it through the woods. Although he ran at top speed, Ruben didn't have a chance to catch the dog. Finally, despite all his efforts to train the dog, despite all his hopes for a loyal friend, Ruben surrendered. He drove home.

The final statement, He drove home, is forceful because it follows a series of longer sentences.
These sentences contain a variety of sentence patterns. However, if the entire paragraph followed a subject-verb pattern, He drove home would not carry the same drama.

Writing Exercise Prompt
1. Adding adjectives, prepositions, and dependent clauses, create sentence variety for each of the subject-verb sentences below.
1. The clown juggled six lemons.
2. A crowd gathered around the exhibit.
3. Susan bought a new car.
4. Todd and Ellen are having twins.
5. The dentist jumped for joy.
6. The apples fell from the tree.
7. Jeremy applied for the job.
8. The movie was four hours long!
9. I sailed the boat.
10. The alarm sounded all day long.

Writing Exercise Prompt
2. Using a free reading book for reference, copy a paragraph that exhibits sentence variety. Below the passage, explain how the author makes use of sentence patterns and sentence length.

Writing Exercise Prompt—Revising A Recent Essay or Story
3. Rewrite at least one page of an essay or story that you've written. Paying attention to sentence length and patterns, create an appropriate amount of sentence variety.