Sentence Workshopwith Linda Urban

NESCBWI 2011

Writing Exercise #1Write a familiar story – Little Red

Riding Hood or Cinderella, for example – in the shortest possible sentences. Use no more than 5 words per sentence, fewer if possible.◦Don’t worry how far you get in the

story.◦You won’t have to share. ◦Don’t fuss over the perfect words.◦You have four minutes. GO!

Writing Exercise #2Write the same story – in the

longest possible sentences. Clauses, sub-clauses, parentheticals, run-ons are fair game.◦Don’t worry how far you get in the

story.◦You won’t have to share. ◦Don’t fuss over the perfect words.◦You have four minutes. GO!

Sentence as Subtext“those elements that propel

readers beyond the plot . . . into the realm that haunts the imagination: the implied, the half-visible, the unspoken.”

Length, sound, rhythm, structure all work to create a subtext for what is being described in the sentence itself.

SpotlightingPattern-seeking. We come to

expect similarity, notice difference.

Setting Up Patterns“ . . . the complex, introductory

sentence that not only establishes the tone, but also encapsulates something essential about the work.”

Junie was hot.

Junie was hot.Jakie was hot.

Junie was hot.Jakie was hot.Even the baby was hot, hot, hot.

Character

The trees were reddening and yellowing. You could see the color moving like a slow tide down the hills that rose on both sides of stupid Marysville.

“What do you think?” I said, and began to sputter with laughter and then I just kept finding different ways to laugh like a braying donkey and an insane hyena and a wacky chimpanzee and I laughed until I thought by the time I stopped laughing she would have forgotten what we were talking about.”

Character

“What do you think?” I said, and began to sputter with laughter and then I just kept finding different ways to laugh like a braying donkey and an insane hyena and a wacky chimpanzee and I laughed until I thought by the time I stopped laughing she would have forgotten what we were talking about.”

Character

Now I was trying to play “Love Potion No. 9” until I started singing, “I held my nose, I closed my eyes . . . I took a drink!” Then I ran around kissing “everything in sight” just like the guy in the old song. I kissed a mailbox, a telephone pole, a stop sign, and a tree trunk. Pablo didn’t kiss anything but he did do his business in someone’s front yard and I yelled “Sorry” and grabbed Pablo with one arm and ran down the street and after I had turned left and right a few times I didn’t know where I was.

Character

“I think sentences should reflect the place of action. It it’s taking place in a dark room, then I think the sentences need some flatness. Some short vowels that block out light. If the action is on the sea, then the sentences can create the waves themselves with their rolling back and forth, the author’s use of pacing that speeds up and slows down . . . A quiet lake seems to require long, lazy sentences with soft consonants.” -- Kathy Appelt

Setting

A riptide that ran like a freight train just in front of that famous sandbar, a riptide that grabbed The Scamper with its girl and its dog and carried them past the sandbar, past the congregating stingrays, past the line of breakers,

and into open water.That riptide.

Setting

Little Baby Mummy tromped, tromped, tromped to the deep, dark swamp, the slithery swamp, to look for Big Mama Mummy.

Setting

She reaches in the freezer, snatches some chicken, flips it in the microwave, zaps it to defrost.

Action

She reaches in the freezer, snatches some chicken, flips it in the microwave, zaps it to defrost.

Action

She spun the wheel fastso the rudder swung fastswinging side to sidingwith Bik slip dippery ridingsplish swish sliding –splash! – overboard.

Action

She spun the wheel fastso the rudder swung fastswinging side to sidingwith Bik slip dippery ridingsplish swish sliding –splash! – overboard.

Action

She could have picked a chiming clock or a porcelain figurine, but Miss Bridie chose a shovel back in 1856.

Theme

She could have picked a chiming clock or a porcelain figurine, but Miss Bridie chose a shovel back in 1856.

Miss Bridie chose the shovel from the peg in the barn, and she took it to the dock, where she stepped aboard the ship.

She leaned on the shovel as she rocked in the cabin while she lived on the ship on her way across the sea.

Uncle Potluck says, when he talks to the moon, the moon talks back.

Theme

The time to work at the sentence level is in revision.

The time to work at the sentence level is in revision.

Surprises and opportunities:1. gold star yourself

The time to work at the sentence level is in revision.

Surprises and opportunities:1. gold star yourself

2. identify tough spots – PLAYsound, structure, length, rhythm

The time to work at the sentence level is in revision.

A tip from Emily Jenkins:

Make the first sentence of your book sparkle.

The time to work at the sentence level is in revision.

A tip from Emily Jenkins:Make the first sentence of your book sparkle.

Make the last sentence of your book sparkle.

The time to work at the sentence level is in revision.

A tip from Emily Jenkins:Make the first sentence of your book sparkle.Make the last sentence of your book sparkle.

Make the first sentence of each chapter sparkle.

The time to work at the sentence level is in revision.

A tip from Emily Jenkins:Make the first sentence of your book sparkle.Make the last sentence of your book sparkle.Make the first sentence of each chapter

sparkle.

Make the last sentence of each chapter sparkle.

Yes, you can.