Spellbinding Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating Readers

322 Pages·2015·1.37 MB·English

by  Barbara Baig

Spellbinding Sentences
A Writer’s Guide to Achieving Excellence and Captivating
Readers
Barbara Baig
Cincinnati, Ohio
Spellbinding Sentences. Copyright © 2015 by Barbara Baig. Manufactured in the United States of
America. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without
permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a
review. Published by Writer’s Digest Books, an imprint of F+W Media, Inc., 10151 Carver Road,
Suite # 200, Blue Ash, OH 45242. [phone]. First edition.
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Writing is an art: its medium is language.
—Francis Christensen
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Welcome
Section 1: The Mastery Path
Chapter 1: Mastering the Craft
Mastering a Writer’s Skills
What You Need to Master Sentence Craft
Chapter 2: Claiming Your Power: Learning Through
Practice
What Is Practice?
Chapter 3: The Basic Sentence Craft Practices
Basic Practice #1: Waking Up the Word Mind
Basic Practice #2: Keeping a Notebook
Basic Practice #3: Reading as a Writer
Basic Practice #4: Reflecting on Your Practice
Make Practice Part of Your Life
Section 2: The Power of Diction: Choosing Words
Chapter 4: The Word Hoard
The Benefits of Unpacking Your Word Hoard
Build Your Word Hoard
Training Your Word Mind
Take Time to Reflect
Chapter 5: Making Meaning
What Do We Mean by “Meaning”?
Time to Reflect
Chapter 6: The Qualities of Words
The Qualities of Words 1: Formal/Informal
The Qualities of Words 2: General/Specific
The Qualities of Words 3: Abstract/Concrete
Take Time to Reflect
Chapter 7: The Language of the Imagination
Images: The Language of the Imagination
The Vocabulary of the Senses
Balancing Showing and Telling
Take Time to Reflect
Looking Ahead
Section 3: The Power of Function: What Words Do
Chapter 8: Parts of Speech
Parts of Speech 1: Content Parts of Speech
Parts of Speech 2: Structural Words
Take Time to Reflect
Chapter 9: Making Phrases
What Is a Phrase?
Composing with Phrases
The Power of Phrases
Take Time to Reflect
Section 4: The Power of Syntax: Ordering Words
Chapter 10: Making Spells: The Magic of Sentences
Kinds of Sentences
Sentence Kernels
Syntactic Slots
Take Time to Reflect
Chapter 11: Elaborating the Basic Sentence
Elaborating the Basic Sentence Patterns
Take Time to Reflect
Chapter 12: Extending the Basic Sentence
Extending the Basic Sentence 1: Adding Together
Independent Clauses
Extending the Basic Sentence 2: Adding Dependent
Clauses
New Sentence Structures
Take Time to Reflect
Section 5: The Power of Composition: Putting it All Together
Chapter 13: Making Sentences Move
A Command of Syntactic Structures
Options for Composition
Take Time to Reflect
Chapter 14: Writing in Rhythm
The Music of Language
Take Time to Reflect
Section 6: Using Your Power
Chapter 15: Power and Responsibility
The Dance of Writing
The Journey Towards Mastery
Practicing in the Work
The Benefits of The Mastery Path
From Play to Deliberate Practice
Moving On
For Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Welcome
So, you want to write—or to write better. Perhaps you dream of producing a
novel or memoir so compelling that major publishers will fight over it. Perhaps
you hope to have your poems accepted by a small press. Perhaps an essay in The
New York Times is your goal, or perhaps you want to self-publish your work.
You may be enrolled in an MFA program in writing; you may be learning to
write on your own, or with the help of a writers’ support group. Or perhaps you
are someone who has always yearned to write but has never quite dared to take
the first step. Wherever you stand now as a writer—whether you are just getting
started or have been writing for some time—this book is for you.
It will provide you with something you can’t get anyplace else: a focused,
classroom-tested training program that will teach you to write spellbinding
sentences.
“Sentences?” you may ask. “Why should I care about sentences? I’m not
interested in all that boring grammar stuff!”
But this is not a grammar book; it’s a book about the power of words. It will
teach you—in a down-to-earth, practical way—how to make that power your
own.
You may not believe you need that power. You may have been told that
what really counts in writing is story, or the ability to dig deep inside yourself
and be totally honest about what you uncover. You may believe that if you can
only come up with a riveting plot, some editor will “fix” all the writing for you.
But the truth is that story, by itself, is just not enough—and professional literary
agents and editors, being busy people, would much rather work with writers
who’ve mastered their craft.
These days, most writing instruction focuses on large-scale craft:
characters, plot, setting, and so on—and, yes, you certainly need this knowledge.