He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday—Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere—at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself—were flowers. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled

Splendid Sentence

How to Write a Splendid Sentence

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28 Videos

These videos show you examples of incredible sentences and offers practical steps to help you take your sentences up a level

Quizzes and PDFs

Test your knowledge with quizzes and find a vast treasure trove of excellent sentences in the PDFs.

Writing Challenges

Try your hand at writing each type of sentence with innovative sentence challenges. Includes the PDF “100 Sentence Challenges.”

Five Main Sections of the Course

Four Pillars of Sentence Writing

Learn the 2/3/1 rule, how to use leaning and standalone clauses, and how to speed up and slow down a sentence.

6 Powerful Sentence Types

Gain confidence in your writing by learning the six most common sentence types that accomplished writers employ.

The Building Blocks of Sentences

Juicy verbs, playful adverbs, clever adjectives, and preposition pileups: learn advanced techniques to ignite your sentences.

Breaking the Rules

Ignore all the rules you’ve ever heard — I’ll teach you how to use passive verbs, fragments, mix high/low diction, use repetition, and make up words.

Writing Challenges

Are you up to the challenge? See if you can jump through the verbal hoops and pull off virtuoso sentences.

FAQ

Whether you’re just starting to write or have several books out, this course will improve your sentences. I start with basics but escalate to sophisticated techniques.

All my lessons are applicable for any writer, no matter the genre, but most of my examples come from fiction.

This course is available worldwide.

You can go at your own pace. But if you do one video/quiz/writing challenge per day, the course would take just over 3 weeks. If you take it full time, it would take about a week.

Email me and ask: john@bookfox.com

WHAT MAKES THIS COURSE DIFFERENT?

No Cliche Advice

Think of all the rules you’ve heard about sentences. I throw them all out the window and push beyond toward practical, advanced instruction.

Not Pretentious

Look, I love a complex, poetic sentence as much as anybody. But sometimes a swift, direct, acidic sentence fits the bill. Beauty comes in many forms.

Not Boring

So many sentence books and courses put me to sleep. Sentences are joyous, beautiful, jitterbugging works of art, and we should have fun with them.

Bookfox has appeared in:

Meet Your Instructor

Hi, I’m John Matthew Fox, and I help authors write better fiction. Over the last ten years, through courses and editing, I’ve helped hundreds of authors publish their books and even win awards.

My website Bookfox has nearly 1,000 posts to help writers, and I’ve published a nonfiction book, “The Linchpin Writer: Crafting Your Novel’s Key Moments” and also a short story collection, “I Will Shout Your Name.”

I’ve been published by the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and won fiction contests at Third Coast and Shenandoah.

Ask me a question?
john@bookfox.co

Course Curriculum

1. Introduction
2. Finding Your Sentence Style
2. PDF
3. Order Your Sentences
3. Quiz
3. PDF
4. Focus Your Sentences
4. Quiz
4. PDF
5. Pace Your Sentences
5. PDF
6. Vary Your Sentences
6. Quiz
6. PDF
7. Narrative Sentence
7. PDF
8. Strong Sentence
8. PDF
9. List Sentence
9. PDF
10. Long Sentence
10. PDF
11. Short Sentences
11. PDF
12. Analogy Sentence
12. PDF
13. Sexy Verbs
13. Quiz
13. PDF
14. To Adverb or Not to Adverb
14. PDF
15. Harness Your Adjectives
15. PDF
16. Preposition Pileups
16. Quiz
17. The Pleasures of Passive Verbs
17. PDF
17. Quiz
18. Glorious Fragments
18. PDF
18. Quiz
19. Everybody Gets High, Everybody Gets Low
19. PDF
19. Quiz
20. Set It On Repeat: Sentence Repetition
20. PDF
20. Quiz
21. The Playground of Wordplay
21. PDF
21. Quiz
22. Controlling Your Sentences
22 & 23. PDF
23. Evolve Your Sentence
24. Beautiful Sentences
24. PDF
25. Wise Sentences
25. PDF
26. Lop Off the Sentence Caboose
26. Quiz
27. Four Book Recommendations
28. Four Final Sentence Missions

Reviews

“I LOVED IT. Seriously. This sentence course made me feel alive again. I was going through a rough time, wanting to write but not being able to. And then I found Bookfox online and decided to take it during this awful pandemic. And HOLY COW? It gave me inspiration again. I am halfway through writing a work now. I am super happy! THANK YOU SO MUCH!”

Maite Urbina

Improve Your Sentences Now

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$149.00

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Split payment over 3 months

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You will love “Splendid Sentences”

I’m confident this course will help you learn how to write and revise your sentences. I’m so confident I offer a money-back 30-day guarantee.

Reviews

“I absolutely loved this course. I’ve been writing for ten years, relying exclusively on my intuition when it came to sentences, and I’m so glad I finally got some outside help because I learned so much. I highly recommend!”

Hannah Balagna

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