Greetings, readers … and writers. Today’s Wednesday Words is mainly for writers, as I promised a while ago on this blog that sometimes I’ll share writing tips for those of you interested in scribbling words, just as I am.
Note: At the end of this post is an important announcement.
If you don’t know already, a few years ago I published my second book, From the Porch to the Page: A Guidebook for the Writing Life. Inside are essays about the writing craft and life, with stories and poems of my own serving as examples. Today, here’s a peek from my chapter, “Building Great Sentences.”
Sentences are baseballs
In the writing game, sentences are baseballs. Although not every sentence brings about a home run, isn’t our goal to hit at least one out of the park? To move effective sentences requires aim and power. “The sentences is where we must start of we hope to understand why some writing captivates us and other writing leaves us unmoved.” That sound advice is from University of Iowa Professor Dr. Brooks Landon [in his Great Courses video, “Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer’s Craft.”]
Just as home runs move fans to stand up and cheer, we want our sentences to move readers to engage their imaginations and feel certain emotions, to bring them to tears, to laughter, to new realizations.
Cumulative sentences
In my chapter about building sentences, I talk about a kind of sentence that adds and adds and adds clauses to it, building the sentence to a crescendo; it’s called a cumulative sentence. If you’ve heard of cumulous cloud formations, you know what I mean. An example I give of this sort of sentence is from one of my favorite books: Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse:
And these men, for whom life has no repose, live at times in their rare moments of happiness with such strength and indescribable beauty, the spray of their moment’s happiness is flung so high and dazzlingly over the wide sea of suffering, that the light of it, spreading its radiance, touches others too with its enchantment.
Thanks for reading and happy writing to you writers out there!
Note: My book is available at major online booksellers and indie bookstores like this: From the Porch to the Page a book by Charlene L. Edge, Alice Peck, and Duane Stapp – Bookshop.org US
Alice Peck is the book’s brilliant editor, and Duane Stapp is the book’s talented designer. I’m eternally grateful for them both. They also worked on Undertow with me.
Charlene on YouTube
The book launch for From the Porch to the Page is on YouTube here.
Important announcement
As of May 12, 2025, the blog is no longer taking new subscribers; the “Subscribe to Blog Posts” boxes are gone from my website. Also, I’ve removed the Contact page from my website.
I can be reached via email if you already have my email address. If you reply to this blog email, your message will reach me, too.
Best wishes from your writer on the wing,
Charlene
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