Week 39: Use Parallel Structure to Create Rhythm

by Tamara Passey

Last week Valerie mentioned a little something called rhythm. This week we're learning another tool to create it.

How does parallel structure create rhythm? 

Imagine a train on the tracks in the above picture...can you hear the steady sound of the wheels turning? Can you feel the momentum? Now what if one of those tracks were not parallel to the other and the train derailed? Not a pretty sight or sound. 

So for the purposes of this week, the train is your sentence and you are the conductor. Your job? Don't let your sentence go off the tracks.

Keep your structure parallel. This means you need to know your nouns from your adjectives as well as your verbs. It helps to know your noun phrases from your verbal nouns, or gerunds, too. But this doesn't need to be an intense study of the different parts of speech. This is rhythm we are talking about. Read these sentences and I bet you'll be able to hear the consistency--or lack of it, even if you can't put your finger on why.

Let's start with something most of us have heard from Alexander Pope:

"To err is human, forgiving is divine."

Did you catch that? Like a train screeching off the tracks. 

"To err is human, to forgive divine."

Ah, that's better.

Here are two correct structures:

"Language is not a carving; it's a curl of breath, a breeze in the pines. (no surprise this quote is from poet and environmental activist Gary Snyder.)

 "In the writing process, the more a thing cooks, the better. (Nobel Prize-winning author Doris Lessing.)1

Choose a pattern and stick to it. Remember your readers want consistency. And consistent parallel structure will keep your sentences humming along the tracks.



1. Mastering The Craft, Wilbers, p. 216 

Week 38 Conclude your Paragraphs with a Click

All About the Rhythm!
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.

Week 37 Write in Sentences, but Think in Paragraphs

Week 37 Write in Sentences, but Think in Paragraphs

by Peggy Urry

Benjamin Franklin had a great sense of curiosity (and I would say, a great amount of luck on his side: think lightning rod).

As a lad, there was a peer with whom he would debate. He "usually found himself on the losing side of these 'disputations'". Franklin, in his autobiography says the "lad" was "naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons."1

To hone his skills, he took an old volume of The Spectator (Joseph Addison and Richard Steele) and studied the essays. He took notes, he wrote them in verse, then after a few days would try to put them back into essay form. And made more notes on how he could improve the next time. Sometimes, apparently needing a bigger challenge, he would jumble his collection of hints and weeks later attempt to put them back into order.

Sounds grand, doesn't it? Let's give it a try using a paragraph from an essay in The Spectator by Joe Floren, "Writing in the Age of Data Drench". Put the following sentences in order:2



___ How often would we make careless spelling errors if correcting them meant starting over with a new rock?

___ It's no coincidence that the typewriter is wordier than longhand, the word processor wordier than the typewriter, and dictation wordiest of          all.

___ Despite its many benefits, the computer gets the blame for increasing reader overload.

___ Imagine how concise we'd be if we had to chisel our messages into rock.

___ Its ease of use encourages writers to be wordier and less organized.

___ Easy writing quickly becomes lazy writing.

Need a few hints? Remember Week 36's paragraph instruction: topic, development, resolution. A topic sentence may look back before going forward--a transitional topic sentence. The one above includes a comma. The sentence that clarifies/amplifies meaning comes next. Guessing on the fourth sentence might be careless and lazy isn't always last. Good luck. Check out Stephen Wilbers's book Mastering the Craft for more hints.


1 Mastering the Craft, Wilbers, Stephen, pg 206.
2 Mastering the Craft, Wilbers, Stephen, pg 207.

Week 36 Use Three-Part Paragraphs to Organize Your Thought

By Tamara Passey

What do the following four items have in common?*
*Yes this is a bit of a trick question

Topic
Development
Resolution
Soup of the Day

The first three are components to a well organized paragraph. As for the Soup of the Day, it doesn't have anything to do with what we are talking about--unless you'd like to think of it like this: If you don't take the time to organize and structure your paragraphs, you end up with a jumbled mess of concepts--kind of like soup. Which is great to eat, but not so great to read!

Last week Valerie introduced us to the mighty paragraph, this week we get to learn a great way to organize our thought within the paragraph. And who doesn't need a little thought organizing?

Wilbers proposes that the paragraph consists of three parts (as listed above.) "The first and last sentences are the topic and resolution. The middle three sentences are the development." 1 (He refers to a paragraph in his chapter - the paragraph can be any length.)

Here is one exercise to get you started:

The sentences in this paragraph have been reordered so that the resolution sentence is now buried in the middle. See if you can identify which of the four sentences should be moved to the end so the sentences appear in their original order:

"All writing is ultimately a question of solving a problem. It may be a problem of where to obtain facts, or how to organize the material. Whatever it is, it has to be confronted and solved. It may be a problem of approach or attitude, tone, or style."2

1. Wilbers, Stephen, Mastering the Craft of Writing, p. 201 
2. Wilbers, Stephen, Mastering the Craft of Writing, p. 204

WeeK 35 Use Paragraphs To Frame Your Thought and Set Your Pace

Point & Shoot
by Valerie Ipson

You may have noticed that the 52 weeks of lessons found in Mastering the Craft began with the basics...first, choosing your words wisely, and then on to constructing powerful sentences. Now we're experts (right?) so we're ready to tackle the almighty PARAGRAPH.

Wilbers compares it to taking a picture. We "decide what to place inside the frame and what to leave out" MTC, 194. In putting together a paragraph, it's the same...you choose the words and sentences and where to place them.

Our manuscripts are not emails where we might wander from thought to thought randomly. Instead, we use paragraphs crafted with a purpose. In fiction, they introduce and develop a thought, but also "mark shifts in scene and dialogue" MTC, 194. They compel a reader from thought to thought at a pace we as the author decides. Longer paragraphs slow the pace, while the short, choppy paragraph steps it up.

Often we take a photo that has too much sky or too much going on in the background and we have to crop it. Cropping is a great tool for writers, too. Give readers some white space around your paragraphs!

Week 34 Start with Something Old; End with Something New

Week 34
Start with Something Old; End with Something New

by Peggy Urry

I had to chuckle to myself when I read the title for this week. Oh, how appropriate as I have a daughter getting married in a couple of months. This post, however, deals with the order of things to improve the flow and clarity of our writing.

Ending our sentences with new information gives the reader a sense of what is coming next, enticing them to read on (as was discussed last week).

"Consider this sentence: 'You need to eliminate common errors in your writing.'"1

Eliminating common errors is an idea that you've introduced and it now is 'old information'. Anything referencing that idea should come at the beginning of subsequent sentences with new info presented at the end.

What do you think of this set-up: "You need to eliminate common errors in your writing. Your credibility will be undermined by errors in grammar, word choice, and punctuation."?

How would you improve it?

Consider this: "You need to eliminate common errors in your writing. Errors (old idea) in grammar, word choice, and punctuation will undermine your credibility."2 The flow and clarity improve with just a simple change in order.


1 Wilbers, Stephen, Mastering the Craft of Writing, pg 189.
2 Wilbers, Stephen, Mastering the Craft of Writing, pg 190.

Week 33 End With the Thought You Intend to Develop Next

End With the Thought You Intend to Develop Next

by Tamara Passey

Week 33: Wherein I call Stephen Wilbers the sentence whisperer. 

In this chapter he details yet another technique of using closing emphasis for effect. A way to connect your sentences to increase the coherence and flow of your information. And why would we want to do that? The more coherent our writing, the easier it is for our reader to follow our thought and (here is the biggee) "the more our reader will want to keep reading." [Readers who will want to keep reading = goal of every writer, right?]

To improve the coherence of your information, check for topics that are mentioned in a sentence and then elaborated upon in following sentences. The placement and order of information seems like such common sense, but as we know, common sense can be bypassed when the pen hits the page (or keys strike the keyboard...doesn't have the same ring.) The topic that will be continued needs to be near the end of the sentence. 

Here is the example Wilbers uses and I'm sure I cannot do the transformation justice in my recap, but hopefully you will get the idea of how to end with the thought you intend develop next:

"There are two natural stress points in every sentence you write. There is one stress point at the beginning and one stress point at the end."

Not bad. But look at how changing the word order improves the flow:

"In every sentence you write, there are two natural stress points. There is one stress point at the beginning and one stress point a the end."

See how the sentences are better connected by ending the first sentence with the topic that is explained in the second sentence?

He doesn't stop there. Remember eliminating needless words and compressing the rhythm?

"In every sentence you write, there are two natural stress points: one at the beginning and one at the end."

Now there is a better sounding and more efficient sentence!

Have fun and rewrite this sentence to get the hang of it:

"We can see that the problem with a long sentence may involve more than just garrulousness, given what we've learned about problems of topic and stress."