Sentence Shenanigans
Exercise #254 Playing with Sentences to Break Expectations
Strategy:
Ready to flip your sentences upside-down and inside-out? This exercise is all about having fun with sentences, turning your typical writing habits on their head. By imposing playful constraints, you'll learn how to manipulate your sentences to better understand how to play with reader expectations. We won't spend much time analyzing what you write, so just think about how readers my be surprised and/or confused by the sentences as you write.
Instructions:
Lexical Constraints: Write a sentence using only single-syllable words or start with short words and end with long ones. You can also try using alliteration or assonance to add a musical quality.
Syntax and Structure: Change the arrangement of words within your sentence. Experiment with mixed syntax like SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) or OSV (Object-Subject-Verb), use sentence fragments, eliminate a part of speech, or play with punctuation (or lack thereof). Try using only commands or questions, or write a periodic sentence where the main clause is at the end.
Rhythm and Flow: Focus on the pace and movement of your sentence. Use fixed syllable counts, create poetic rhythms, or incorporate anaphora (repetition at the beginning of sentences), epiphora (repetition at the end), or chiasmus (a mirrored structure).
Perspective and Voice: Experiment with the viewpoint and voice. Shift perspectives mid-sentence, change tenses, switch from first person to third person, use an unreliable narrator, defamiliarize common actions or objects, or write in a stream of consciousness style.
Cognitive Processes (optional): Engage your reader’s cognitive processes with wordplay or deeper meanings. Use double entendre, homophones, metaphoric chains, or write idiomatic expressions literally.
Semantic Meaning (optional): Play with the meaning and associations of words. Use unexpected modifiers, move from abstract to concrete within a sentence, or employ synesthetic descriptions (describing one sense in terms of another).
Tags: creativity, sentence structure, wordplay, perspective, rhythm, semantics
Category:Â Manuscript Revision > Revise Language
Example:
Lexical Constraints:
Single syllables: The old man did his best trick in the dark room.
Short to long: He cast spells, crafting thrilling illusions, astounding audiences magnificently.
Alliteration: The wizened wizard wove wondrous works, wickedly wild and wondrously weird.
Syntax and Structure:
SOV: The old magician his most spectacular illusion in the dimly lit theater performed.
Fragment: In the dimly lit theater, the old magician's most spectacular illusion.
Question without punctuation: did the old magician perform his most spectacular illusion in the dimly lit theater
Rhythm and Flow:
Internal rhyme: The ancient conjurer presented his greatest magical feat in the shadowy playhouse, leaving viewers incomplete.
Perspective and Voice:
Perspective shift: I watched the old magician begin his act. He seemed nervous as he prepared for his grand finale.
Tense shift: The magician steps onto the stage. He had practiced this illusion for years.
Cognitive Processes (optional):
Double entendre: The magician's assistant disappeared in a flash, leaving the audience and her clothes behind.
Extended metaphor: The magician wove a tapestry of illusion, each trick a thread, the audience's gasps the needle pulling it tight.
Semantic Meaning (optional):
Unexpected modifiers: The geriatric sorcerer executed his most quantum-entangled chimera in the bioluminescent auditorium.
Abstract to concrete: The concept of impossibility shattered as doves erupted from empty hands and cards rained from the ceiling.
Synesthesia: The magician's movements tasted like cinnamon as his velvet voice painted the air with shimmering gold.