by Valerie Ipson
"Take special care with the last sentence of each paragraph," William Zinser advises in On Writing Well. "It is the crucial springboard to the next paragraph ... Make the reader smile and you've got him for at least one paragraph more"...as quoted in Wilbers Mastering the Craft.
So just as we've practiced ending a sentence with a bit of a punch, we can, and should, do the same with our paragraphs.
Wilbers teaches that this technique is more than paragraph structure, more than figuring out beats, and more than putting your best line at the end. It involves RHYTHM.
Your homework, should you choose to accept it, is to check out chapter 38 and read the examples included. Read the concluding sentences of each paragraph by Eudora Welty, Kevin Kling, and Stephen King out loud and listen to the rhythm of the lines leading up to the pause. See how the concluding sentences create an impact.
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