Variety is the Spice of Writing

Roxy Writer here, coming to you from the Stone Writing Center @ Del Mar College.

Children’s poetry is often written in an unvaried sentence structure, each sentence repeating the cadence of the ones before. For instance, “Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are? / Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky” not only rhymes but also has a pattern of syllabication and sentence structure. While it is easy to remember lines such as these, it is not a great idea to write a college essay without variation in sentence structure. There are basically four different sentence structures: Simple, Compound, Complex, and Compound/Complex, and it’s a good idea to use all four types in compositions.

To keep a reader’s attention, variety is necessary. An essay composed of only simple sentences will soon have the reader nodding off, no matter what the content of the essay might be. An essay written solely in compound/complex sentences might result in brain overload for the reader. Good writers avoid endless repetitions of the same kind of sentence structure and use all four types so that their readers remain alert and focused.

One way to add interest to a paper that happens, for unknown reasons, to be a series of simple sentences is to combine sentences, thereby adding variation and liveliness to the writing.

I went to the beach. The sun was shining. The waves were great. I spent hours surfing.

A good day sounds somewhat dull when described in the four simple sentences above. If I combine the four simple sentences, perhaps the moment will seem more exciting.

I surfed for hours when I went to the beach because the sun was shining on great waves.

Even that doesn’t truly capture the moment, so I might consider adding adjectives and adverbs to make the day come alive for the reader.

I surfed in the zone for hours when I went to the nearly deserted beach where the sun shone brightly on amazingly great, sky-blue waves.

A clearer picture emerges with both sentence structure variety and words and phrases that modify.

Good writers generally use all the ways the language allows to inspire their readers to think and to imagine. Varying sentence structure and using modifiers are two ways to keep the readers’ attention from wandering away to peaceful daydreams of sunlit beaches with waves that reach as far as the clear blue sky.

Roxy’s tip: Add spice to your writing by using a variety of sentence structures and by adding adverbs and adjectives!

See you next time the breeze is cool, the sun is up, and the waves roll into view! My next entry is coming soon. ‘Til then, hang ten!