250 Things You Should Know About Writing (12 page)

John died
. Two words. Not a lot of information. But that's okay. Because the reader wants that information. It creates in his mind an open variable in the story equation you're building. John died, yes, but how why when where? (Probably of bathtub biotoxin. In my basement. Ten minutes ago. Because he was an asshole who couldn't keep his mouth shut
about the goddamn biotoxin
.)

Children's books are written for, duh, children. The sentence construction in those books is about as simple as it can get, and admittedly, some of the stories are simple, too. But some of those stories can be quite complex, with a bubbling sub-layer of biotoxin... er, I mean, profundity beneath the surface of those basic, straightforward sentences. You want to get back to the heart of learning how to write a fucking sentence, you could do worse than by nabbing a couple kiddie books and studying their elegance.

Whenever I do development or editing work, the most troubling thing I see are sentences I must mark with the dreaded three-word-abbreviation of AWK. Which, admittedly, sounds like the cry of a petulant sea-bird, but no, it stands for
AWKward
. As in, this sentence sticks out like a hammerstruck boner. Something about it is positively Lovecraftian: it unsettles the mind, it curdles the marrow.
Its angles do not add up.
What I'm really saying with that tag is, "This sentence doesn't make nearly enough sense." And frequently that confusion stems from a poorly-constructed and often over-complicated sentence. You must strive for clarity. As mentioned, a sentence must convey information, and information is not properly conveyed if I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Long sentences reduce comprehension in readers. The longer and more convoluted the sentence, the greater chance you will lose the reader's attention and understanding.

A run-on sentence is a technically a sentence that takes a bunch of independent clauses and smooshes them together like melting gummi bears without the pleasure of punctuation or conjunction. In practice, just know that a run-on sentence is one that goes on and on and on. Feels rambly. Loses cohesion. Run-on sentences are loose butthole. Concise sentences are tight butthole.

12. I Want To Buy The Semi-Colon A Private Sex Island

I love those winking little cheeky fuckers like you wouldn't believe. You can't use them too often, but when you do, you use them
in general
to link two independent clauses without a word like "but" or "and." Mmm. Semi-colons. Come to me, semi-colon. Wink at me. Touch my man-parts. Don't tell my wife. Wink. ;)

The way to fix a fucked-up sentence is the same way we'll end up fixing civilization: you have to destroy it and rebuild it. Break it down into its constituent parts and just rewrite that slippery sonofabitch. The real secret here? Most times, you'll end up breaking the sentence in twain as if you were Solomon. One boggy, busted-ass sentence is almost always made better when it becomes two leaner, meaner sentences. Bisect those bitches.

Novels, scripts, blog posts, ransom notes -- whatever the body of writing, you will find more than one sentence living together. And so, writing a good sentence isn't just about nailing one sentence, but about nailing the sentence before it, and after it. They live in colonies, these goddamn things, like termites, or ants, or polyamorous space marines. It's like what they say about roaches: you find one, you know there's bound to be a whole lot more behind the walls.

Each individual sentence has a rhythm, and you can diagram it -- Shakespeare was quite concerned with this, what with all that
iambic pentameter
. You can see it too in children's verse. Or even in unmetered poetry -- read free verse aloud and you'll find the rhythm, the way each word and idea flows into the next. And that's the key, right there -- "into the next." Each sentence establishes a rhythm with the one before it and the one after it. They flow into each other like water -- calm water here, rapids here, waterfall there, back again to still waters. We think of sentences as being written down and thus related to the eyes, not the ears -- but good writing
sounds
good when spoken. Great writing is as much about the ear as it is about the eye.

Each sentence must be different from the last. Variety creates a chain of interest. If I gaze upon a wallpaper with an endless pattern, my eyes glaze over and I wet myself. But look upon a wall with variety -- a photo, a painting, a swatch of torn wallpaper, a dead hooker hanging on a hook (
that's why they call them "hookers"
) -- and your eye will continue moving from one thing to the next. Sentences work like this. Vary your usage. Short sentence moves into a long sentence. Sentence openings never repeated twice in a row. Simplicity yields to complexity. Each sentence, different in sound and content from the last.

Like I said earlier, a good sentence begets mystery. It makes you want to get to the next sentence. No one sentence should try to say it all. Think of each sentence like a tiny iteration of a cliffhanger. Each is an opportunity to convince the reader to keep on reading.

Some folks suggest that cutting any and all instances of the verb "to be" from your work will make that work stronger. They're probably not wrong, because "is" ends up fairly limp-dicked far as verbs go. Like with all things: find moderation. Don't go psycho on every iteration of the verb. If you see a sentence that uses some form of "to be" and you think,
dang, this sentence could be stronger,
then rip out that verb and dose it up with the corticosteroid of a tougher, more assertive verb.

See what I did there? Yeah. You see it. Avoid passive constructions. They
wussify
your sentences. What makes a sentence passive? When the actor in a sentence is not the subject of that sentence. "Bob strangles Betty." Bob is the actor and the subject. But if you rewrote that to be, "Betty was strangled by Bob," you've made the subject of the sentence separate from the actor. You can spot passive language generally with the verb "to be" bound up with the past participle ("was strangled by").

An adjective modifies a noun, an adverb modifies a verb. Adjectives seem okay, and yet adverbs get a bad rap. What's the deal? Adverbs alone are not poison. They do not by themselves sink a sentence. In fact, what people often identify as adverbs is a small subset of the whole pie. For instance, that word I just used -- "often" -- is an adverb. It modifies "identify" as an element of frequency. If I say, "John lives here," then know that "here" is an adverb (modifying "lives" -- he lives where? Here.) How do you know if an adverb belongs? Read the sentence aloud. "Gary giggled delightedly" has two problems -- first,
giggling
already indicates
delight
, and second,
delightedly
sounds clunky when you speak that sentence aloud. You notice it when you speak it. Again: we read with our ears as well as our eyes.

What I mean is, you don't want a sentence with a lot of junk in the trunk. Junk language, like junk food, is both easy and delicious. Writing a good sentence is often about what to omit as much as it is about what goes into the mix. Beware: clichés, redundancies, pleonasms, needlessly complicated clauses, bullshit intensifiers (
really, actually, truly, severely, totally
), euphemisms, and passive constructions.

Like I said -- avoid all those things. Except when you don't. Horrible and confusing, I know, but here's the deal: you have to know the rules and then, from time to time, slap those rules like a red-cheeked parking attendant. Sometimes, we want to look at Kim Kardashian's massive pork roast behind because, well,
we just do so shut up about it
. Adding in rare junk language
can
, if done right, add a conversational feel to your writing. If that's what you seek.

You might think I'd love the expletive construction, what with me being such a fan of, well,
expletives
. But this isn't that. No fuck shit sonofadamnbastard here, I'm afraid. Nay, the expletive construction is when you begin a sentence with "there is." (Found quite frequently in movie trailers, or in the opening lines of novels.) This construction is often both lazy and passive. Don't use it. Your sentence is better than that. Here's why: you can always rewrite a "there is" sentence in a better, more confident manner. "There is a fly in my soup" sounds much better when written as, "A fly flew into my soup," or, "I see a fly in my soup," or, "Why the fuck is there a fly in my soup, get me your manager, I want to watch him eat the fly in front of all the other restaurant patrons, because if he doesn't, I'm going to deliver an epic testicular kicking to all parties present." Or something like that.

But, you also have as many chances to make it sing. What I'm saying is, the average novel has 15,000 sentences. Each one can't be poetry. Not unless you're willing to commit years to a single book. What you can do is make sure they're right from the get-go. Know how to write the right sentence. Learn the tips above. Find your own tricks to write a mean-ass motherfucker of a sentence -- a sentence that sings, a sentence that bites. A sentence that conveys information clearly and without confusion and with a cadence beating in its heart.

A sentence is home to endless possible complexities. The entire power of language composition lives inside a sentence. You should know how to write. Know where punctuation goes, know what works and what doesn't. But you'll eventually hit a limit of when it becomes useful and when it just becomes obsessive. Do you need to know about the nominative case? Do you need to know what a "predeterminer" is? What about a subordinating conjunction? Or a bearitive grotanical modifier? I might've made that last one up. The point is, knowing those things isn't bad. It's just not always that helpful. You're not trying to get your doctorate, here. You’re free to get a little crazy. But not "hobo genius mathematically solving the world's troubles with sidewalk chalk and fecal smears" crazy.

A novel is a finished product. A film is a finished product. A screenplay is just a blueprint. It's just a template. You're creating the
possibility
of a film, not the final product. Let that free you.

A script has to read well before it ever makes it onto a screen. Nobody reads a shitty script and says, "This sucks out loud on the page, but boy, it's going to look awesome on the screen." Well, okay, Michael Bay might say that. But then he rides his cyborg tiger into the heart of an atomic cloud to the tune of some Aerosmith song. You can’t hold that guy’s attention for long.

A screenplay fails first because of its crapgasmic story. Not just plot: but story. Story is all of it: plot, characters, theme, mood. You're trying to say something, trying to tell a cracking good tale. Characters are the vehicle for that story. We're going to spend two hours with, what? Boring characters? Dull story? Unlikable and unbelievable plot?

I know. You want to fight against the three-act structure. You want to kick and spit and break the bonds of this straitjacket The Man has slapped you into. Don't. The three-act structure is here to stay. Trust me when I say, producers and directors
look for it
. They seek those act breaks. Here's the trick, though: the three acts are nowhere near as limiting as people believe. They're very easy and translate roughly to Beginning, Middle, and End. And out of each act is a turn, a pivot point of change and escalation. Hit those acts at 25%, 50%, and 25% of your script's total length (Act I, II, and III, respectively) and you're golden.