A great metaphor will have distance between the metaphor and the original object. It’s very important that they’re unlike. The more different your metaphors are from the thing described, the more surprising they will be, and the more they will help your reader to understand. Metaphor Mistakes Highly similar metaphors. For instance, “a pool in […]
Here are 65 examples of long sentences ranging from the relatively brief 96 words to one of the longest sentences at 2,156 words. Almost all of the really long sentences are under 1,000 words. The six longest sentences (1,000+ words) are mostly a curiosity, just to see what is possible. I hope students of writing can study these sentences to […]
I love good sentences. I really do. The best sentences are ones that show off brilliance without being show-offy. They pulse with the vitality of language and they aren’t any longer than they need to be. Below you’ll find 43 good sentences. Solid sentences, sentences that you would be proud to bring home to Mom and […]
These 20 love sentences are not only true, they are also beautiful. I’ve taken all of them from writers of literature, modern ones writing in the last 40 years. This is your final warning: these love sentences are powerful. Don’t blame me if you need a Costco-sized tissue box. Watching a sappy movie might make […]
The governing wisdom about writing sentences says not to repeat. Repetition is bad. Repetition is sloppy. Writers are encouraged to consult a thesaurus and change up that pesky offending word. But is this really true? Literature is full of repetition. Literary writers constantly use the literary device of repeated words. I think the only type […]
How do you pick the most beautiful sentences in literature? Are beautiful sentences full of nice turns of phrase? Or are beautiful sentences full of wisdom? Must beautiful sentences be full of risk and ambition, or can they be subtle and simple? Must beautiful sentences make you feel something? As I was combing through thousands of lovely sentences to make this […]
How should you write a sentence? Well, most guides will start off with 10,000 ways NOT to write a sentence. You know, the finger-wagging schoolmarm that lectures you about avoiding fragments and comma splices and run-ons. Ugh. That’s so negative. I prefer to focus on all the beautiful ways that you CAN write a sentence […]
I love short sentences. I really do. In any book filled with a series of long, expansive sentences, a short sentence arrives like a gift. Short sentences rarely have the ambiguity or mystery of a long sentence. They rarely have twists or swerves or switchbacks, because that requires the length of a longer sentence. They rarely win your admiration for […]
In the latest issue of GQ, Boris Kachka tries to review Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue in one sentence. The justification for this is somewhat weak — he cites Jonathan Franzen for having a ‘long’ sentence in Freedom (wait: 307 words doesn’t really count as “long”) and the fact that Chabon himself tries a 12 page […]
