How to Set a Pace With Sentence Length

Good writing includes sentences of varying lengths to control the pace of the story. Long sentences create a flow that carries the reader, while short sentences slow the pace. To control the pace of your writing, use sentence length to create the rhythm of the story as well as your own style. Read on to learn how to set a pace with sentence length.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Study writing that you find has an effective pace. Count the number words in each sentence. Take note of the placement of the commas and periods. Evaluate the number of sentences of varying length in each paragraph.

2. Analyze your own writing. Mark off 20 sentences and count the total number of words. Divide by 20 to get the average number of words in a sentence. Adjust your pace to reflect a variety in use of sentences.

3. Slow the story to simplify it. Longer sentences can complicate the story in places where simplicity is more effective.

4. Create suspense by varying sentence length. The halting pace of shorter sentences makes the reader eager to move on and find out what happens next.

5. Vary sentence length. Short choppy sentences are monotonous, while consistently long sentences tire the reader.

6. Edit sentence length by combining shorter sentences, or by breaking longer sentences into shorter ones. Monitor the resulting pace of the story.

7. Read some books written for very small children. Notice the sentence length and gauge the effect on the reader or listener.

Tips & Warnings

• Use sentence average to evaluate the pace of your writing. An average word count below 14 means that may have too many short sentences. An average of more than 22 words per sentence may indicate that your sentences are too long.

Resources

• Garbl's Editorial Style Manual