If the sentence is "the fundamental unit of a work of literature," then a good sentence should be the goal of a good writer. But what is a good sentence?
Found another excellent lesson for writers online, entitled HOW TO WRITE A GREAT SENTENCE. What I like most about the article is what we know – there is no definite way to write a great sentence.
Beginning with an explanation of "style" by the use of "creative devices, grammar, diction, tone, rhythm and cadence," the article says all of those elements "taken as a whole" is "style."
For examples to compare styles, the article chose William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway.
Faulkner wrote purple prose with long, convoluted sentences. Whereas Hemingway wrote short, clipped, concise, pithy sentences capturing, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, "the flicker of modern life.”
The tempo of the writer's sentences reflect the speed of the lives they depicted. "Faulkner basks in the heat of south" while "Hemingway flits at life in the city." While Faulkner lounged, Hemingway rushed.
Faulkner said of Hemingway, "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
Hemingway said of Faulkner, "Poor Faulkner, does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
Faulkner House, 624 Pirate Alley, New Orleans
where Nobel laureate William Faulkner
wrote his first novel Soldiers’ Pay, 1925
The article illustrates examples of each writer's work, chosen as they serve "the acute ends of he spectrum of sentence structure."
Long sentences? Short sentence. Medium length sentences. Vary them to turn your writing into music, let your writing sing, give it a pleasant lilt, a harmony.
OK, I knew a lot of this but the article is a good reminder . I recommend it, expecially to beginning writers.
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