Best of Week: Short Sentences

I think the most interesting and valuable topic we covered in class this week was how to write and recognize short sentences. Though I have used short sentences for emphasis in my writing in the past, I think Mr. Allen's insight paired with the examples shown in our Artful Sentences book really helped me understand this tool even more.

Now I find that I'm noticing short sentences everywhere, in everything I read! Best of all, I'm eager to apply this lesson to my writing. I thought it was a good point that Mr. Allen made about short sentences 'giving the reader a break'. It does get tiring reading lengthy sentences over and over again. You feel like the author's cramming detail after detail down your throat.

The amazing thing about short sentences is how they can have such an impact with so few words. In Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini uses short sentences repeatedly. For example, on page 192, it reads:

Come. There is a way to be good again, Rahim Khan had said on the phone just before hanging up. Said it in passing, almost as an afterthought.

A way to be good again.

That last sentence struck me more than the three paragraphs before it combined, which is an incredible feat considering it is only six words.

Short sentences are powerful.