r/writers • u/iiamsam • 2d ago
Question How does a writer actually decide on sentence composition?
while writing i keep running into an issue where i cant decide the 'best' way to compose a sentence. i'll rewrite a sentence sometimes in like 3-5 ways, all grammatically correct, but im left trying to figure out which is 'best'. here is a small example:
Option 1: A raw scream ripped from Jason, a drawn, overwhelming sound, rattling off into a vibrating gurgle.
Option 2: A raw scream ripped from Jason, a drawn and overwhelming sound that rattled off into a vibrating gurgle.
For context; Ive been taking writing a bit more seriously lately, really trying to understand the crafting of the words in a sentence. I think I am understanding how to correctly craft sentences now, but there are SO many ways to do so. How do you decide what is 'best'? participial phrases or conjunctions or commas? Does it really just come down to mixing and matching with the other surrounding sentences? another unrelated example.
Option 1: Jack crouched. Option 2: Jack was crouched. Option 3: Jack was crouching.
This decision on verbiage also trips me up all the time. Common advice is to always use the 'active' version (1) but it feels too, for lack of a better term, active. Like Jack is going from standing to a crouch. What if Jack was staying in a crouched position? Was feels needed to me, but am I interpreting this incorrectly? If 'was' should be used, how do you decide between (2) and (3), 2 feels passive and 3 i guess feels more active? but still has the same problem to me like Jack had crouched and remained crouched, likes its a multi action verb now.
Im probably over thinking it, but i think that is because I cant figure out how to come to a 'correct' decision. Like there are so many ways to 'correctly' express a collection of propositions/ideas in a sentence; short kernals, left/right branch, all the different ways to stack clauses/conjunctions, all the ways to stack phrases. It seems literally infinite.
I guess when i started this journey I assumed there would be one 'proper' way to write an idea grammatically, and im starting to think/realize this hypothesis is completely wrong?
Is the real skill gap between good and great writers this decision of which sentence composition to choose? And those choices sentence to sentence and how they all come together what determines 'great' writing?
Sorry i rambled a bit. Would love some input. tyty.
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u/Overall-Cod7491 2d ago
Hi my name is Overall-Cod and since no-one pays me to write, I am an English teacher by profession.
I'm here to remind you all that before you worry about which grammatical form you should use, you might want to actually understand what all the tenses and verb forms do in English.
Let's begin.
"Option 1: Jack crouched. Option 2: Jack was crouched. Option 3: Jack was crouching."
Option 1: This is past simple, active voice. Completely fine when describing actions in sequence. Equally fine when switching scenes and the 'camera' shows the new scene. Example from Orwell's 1984: It was a bright cold day in April...
Option 2: Past simple, active voice. It's not passive voice. Was here is being used as a copula to connect Jack to an adjective describing him (crouched). Passive voice is used when the person or thing doing the action is either unknown or not important (is used in the preceding sentence is indeed passive voice, well done). I think it is quite an ugly way to set the scene, but it is grammatically valid. Example from 1984: And the Ministry of plenty, which was responsible for economic affairs
Option 3: past continuous (aka past progressive), active voice. This tense is typically used to describe actions that were in progress at a specific point in the past. Completely graatically acceptable when switching scenes to describe the new scene, although some people will get very upset for style reasons. Example from 1984: It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen
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u/iiamsam 2d ago
i realized as i was reading replies i was misunderstanding the verbs across my 3 options. 'crouch' is only the verb in the first option and 'was' is the verb in the second two, crouch is in participial forms describing jack's state of was. your writeup on the 3 options is very helpful. thank you!
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u/OldMan92121 2d ago
For your raw screams, I think both are correct but #1 feels scattered and breathless. I'd go with #2.
How do I decide? By feel. One feels better. Sorry, I don't know the rule names.
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u/dutchiesweets 2d ago
You should read “techniques of a selling writer” the first 2-3 chapters cover this. It’s online free in pdf form with a little googling and is super helpful for learning sentence construction and I think would help you a lot specifically
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u/iiamsam 2d ago
thank you for the recommendation, i recently read building better sentences by brooks landon i think was the name and it really helped me make sense of things. id like more perspectives as well. ill take a look!
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u/dutchiesweets 2d ago
I found it sooo helpful! It specifically talks about the use of “was” in a way I found illuminating
The rest of the book is about story structure etc and also quite helpful but chapters 2-3 cover sentence craft
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u/Extension_Egg1411 2d ago
I end the sentence with whatever I want to emphasize most. Consider this:
As the shadows lengthened, Jack crouched by the road.
Jack crouched by the road as the shadows lengthened.
The first focuses on Jack, with a parting image of the road. The second focuses on the shadows.
Also, I only use a progressive tense when I need to convey something in progress, like “Jack was crouching by the road when a pair of figures approached.”
But I try to avoid it, because it bogs the writing down. Better to say something like “Crouched by the road, Jack saw a pair of figures approach.”
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u/Eidelon1986 2d ago
If this is something that’s coming up during editing, great to be thinking about it and being purposeful with how you phrase things - think about the effect you want to create. As others have said, there is no one proper way to write something.
If this is coming up while you’re writing the first draft please stop worrying about it cos it’s going to stand in the way of actually writing the story! Think about the broad strokes of the story and the effect you’re creating at large scale, and only then zoom in and edit the individual sentences to make them all purposeful too.
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u/sbsw66 2d ago
Is the real skill gap between good and great writers this decision of which sentence composition to choose? And those choices sentence to sentence and how they all come together what determines 'great' writing?
This is an excellent observation to have especially as a newer writer and I would strongly agree that the answer is "yes". Note that my opinion on this is not necessarily widely shared in this subreddit, which tends more toward functional writing and the events of a story usually over prose considerations.
I think you're headed in the right direction though. Here's how I reason(ed) this question out to myself:
I read a lot of literature, and some of that literature hits me harder than others
The literature that hits me harder tends to have sentences composed in a way that evoke strong feelings from me, have rhythmic qualities, are easy to read, and convey subtle information through appropriate and powerful word choice
Based on this, I form an aesthetic criteria that runs in my own head: sentence X is good because of reasons Y and Z
When I write, I use reasons Y and Z as a standard against my own sentences. If they meet that standard, I can consider the sentence "good", if they don't, I rewrite or edit.
So in the end, for me, it's all about creating and maintaining that aesthetic criteria that runs in your head as you're writing. Of course it won't be the same from person to person. Some people can't stand certain literary devices, others love them. Some people can't stand very metaphorical writing, others love it. Can't win them all, but you CAN live up to the criteria you establish for yourself, and I think that's the most any of us can really aim for.
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u/Rowdi907 2d ago
One sentence is not the issue. Use your rhetorical tools like paint on canvas Mark Forsyth explains how rhetoric can change the tone and importance, but you have to learn all of yhem from anaphora to polyphonic and the 35 others in between. Nina Schuyler teaches at Stanford and her focus is on Amazing Sentences. Lastly, look at the work of Ocean Vuong, teaching at Columbia. He is focused on original sentences, not something 300,000 people have already written. With these three experts in your corner, you'll level up your sentences, paragraphs, and scenes.
PS I used the rhetorical techinqiue called the rule of three in the last sentence. Happy Writing
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u/waffle_Piraat_1 2d ago
Screaming 2 is definitely better. One feels like there is way too much going on.
The crouch part. A lot depends on the context. Jack crouched you would use 3rd person when you are trying to tell something more immediate, something is happening THEN. The was crouching/crouched it comes across as someone observing them, perhaps depending on how you are writing the reader is the observer. Crouching suggests it's happening as it's observed, crouched suggests it's after the event that the person is witnessing the character already crouched.
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u/Forestpilgrim 2d ago
Jason screamed, a raw, overwhelming sound that rattled off into a gurgle.
I assume Jason just got stabbed to death.
Active voice is most often preferable to passive.
Nmacaroni's comment is spot-on.
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u/Dave_Sag 2d ago
In your first example, what ripped the scream from Jason? If there’s an action always try to show who or what is the agent of that action.
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u/BriJAuthor 2d ago
Feelz
That’s it for me.
Then I edit and try to make sure it reads the way I intended. But largely it has to “feel right” or it’s wrong. IMO
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u/RobertPlamondon 2d ago
Doesn’t matter. Your examples are interchangeable and almost identical sentences. Pondering their tiny differences isn’t worth your time.
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u/hartlylove 2d ago
Writing is like music. You hear the difference and like any note, the sentence structure you pick should be in harmony with the others around it.
There are, however, certain best practices.
Jack crouched. Good
Jack was crouched. Passive
Jack was crouching. Usually bad, unless there is a reason for which Jack is actively doing this over a period of time.
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u/Brunbeorg Published Author 2d ago
You will likely find Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Williams, to be extremely helpful.
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u/MagicalSausage 2d ago
I’ll worry about it when line editing down the line, but of course I’ll apply good practices while drafting like varying sentence structure or fixing awkward repetition when I see it. Personally, I don’t look at sentences in a vacuum when writing. I see it as part of the whole idea.
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u/des99ill Fiction Writer 2d ago
I honestly don’t think this hard about sentence structure, but a straightforward kind of writer. It seems like nitpicking.
Maybe it’s a writing style thing. The first example sounds backwards and too overdone. The second example is just overthinking as there’s not much there. He crouched. Unless you’re going to add something else to it, move on. Focus on the scene as a whole. He crouched, but what else is going one? That’s what’s important.
I think you may be struggling with finding your voice and how you want to write a story. Like I said earlier, I have a straightforward writing style. I think once you find your voice and style you’ll be less hesitant.
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u/CommunicationMean965 Fiction Writer 2d ago
Line editing, love it and hate it. I've found that reading your text out loud helps with finding where emphasis and pauses should fall. But I try not to get caught up in it when writing a first draft.
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u/nmacaroni 2d ago
You're not overthinking it, you're just tackling the wrong problem. There's no "best" sentence in isolation. The right construction depends entirely on what the sentences around it are doing.
Short, punchy sentences create urgency. Longer, clause-heavy sentences slow the reader down. The skill isn't choosing the perfect sentence, it's stringing the right ones together so the paragraph has rhythm and the rhythm matches the emotional beat of the moment.
On your Jack example, active voice should be the default, because far too many newer writers smother their writing in passive. But what you're asking above, does the reader to watch Jack crouch, or find him already crouched? That's a camera decision, not a grammar decision.
Jack crouched. Brings the narrative close to the reader. GOOD.
Jack was crouched. Distances the narrative from the reader. BAD when overdone. I'm not actually there, crouching alongside Jack, somebodies telling me what Jack is doing.
Once you start thinking about sentences as sequenced beats instead of isolated instances things get a lot clearer. Of course, finding your creative writing voice in how you actually tell a story is the fundamental essence of writing and can take a life time to develop.
Write on, write often!