Common Problems (Part 34 of 50)

Put the most important part of the sentence at the end. Think of the end of a sentence (and just as true as the last sentence in a paragraph) as your final, most emphatic statement. This is one of the principles I didn't grasp until about 15 years after I began to publish.

As the author, you decide which words you want to emphasize.

I wrote these words in a first draft of my book, Unleash the Writer Within: I am a passionate person; I can be a passionate writer if I choose. When I read the sentence again, I decided that the strongest part of the sentence should be I can be a passionate writer. It's the being and not the choosing that I wanted to emphasize, so I revised it to read: I am a passionate person; if I choose, I can be a passionate writer.[1]

Here are two examples from my students.

* Richard rattled the bushes with a stick he broke loose from a tree on the way in. (Better: With a stick he had broken loose from a tree. . . he rattled the bushes. Bushes is stronger than the preposition in.)

* He heaved a sigh of relief, although drenched in fearful sweat. (Reverse the clauses.)

Put the emphatic part of the sentence at the end. 

Those words make the most impact on readers. 

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[1] Unleash the Writer Within by Cecil Murphey (Wheaton, IL: 2012).

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A note from Twila:

Cec is thinking about doing a one-day seminar on the inner writer, based on his book Unleash the Writer Within. If you had the opportunity to attend a seminar on the inner writer, what would you want Cec to address? Email me with your suggestions.