Writing Stack Exchange
Writing Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [sentence-structure]

This tag should be used for questions about structuring your sentences in certain genres or for certain characters in your writing.

This tag should be used for questions about structuring your sentences in certain genres or for certain characters in your writing. You should use this tag together with other tags that describe what you are trying to achieve, such as , or . You may also want to think about the specific words you use in your sentences, leading to the usage of tags such as , or .

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Should an emoji come before or after a full-stop?

When I make a hilarious joke on social media it's easy to put an emoji/emoticon/smiley on the end. But sometimes I want to set the context and make a more reasoned argument over a paragraph or so. I might put something funny in the middle . Should…
Mat
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How can I improve my sentence construction or flow in general writing?

Can anyone suggest resources or techniques I can use to improve my sentence construction when writing? I am a native English speaker and fairly well educated, but confess I didn't pay much attention in English class at school, something that's…
Will Appleby
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How long should each paragraph be in fiction writing?

In high school and even college most students are told to aim for around 5-6 sentences per paragraph. I am now trying to write fiction, fantasy specifically, but am hitting a wall when it comes to paragraph length. Most of my paragraphs are around…
Duffy
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Very long sentences: personal style or just bad writing?

I'm writing a story targeted towards children in which the protagonist is a young girl. I find that in writing her dialog and the narrative, I'm producing a lot of very long sentences, to the point that an entire paragraph may be seven or eight…
brianmearns
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What's the effect of placing "of course" at the beginning or at the end of the sentence?

Example from my writing: Not everything was rainbow and roses, of course. Sometimes rain would fall on my head or a thorn prickle my finger. Of course, not everything was rainbow and roses. Sometimes rain would fall on my head or a thorn…
alex
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Sentence starters for summaries?

I'm writing a technical book (step-by-step sort of book) and noticed that all my summaries start with 'In this chapter we ...'. What would be some other sentence starters that I could use to make the summaries more interesting?
Iris Classon
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How should I designate a break in a sentence to display a code segment?

I'm writing some documents with embedded code listings. I reference such listings many times using something to the effect of, "...we provide an example as follows", with the block of code shown below as expected. What I'm unsure of, though, is the…
TheProgrammer
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How can I balance clarity and voice when rewriting complex sentences?

I often struggle when revising complex sentences in my writing. On one hand, I want my prose to be clear and accessible to readers; on the other, I want to maintain my unique voice and style. For example, I might write a sentence that’s rich in…
F. A. Mala
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Why does variety in sentence length and structure feel engaging?

An obvious answer might be "because people like variety", but this doesn't feel right. If this was the case, why doesn't using a different font family (or color) for each word feel engaging? What is it about us humans that makes us attracted to this…
Emanuil Rusev
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Starting a sentence with well. Does my sentence need to be changed?

I had a colleague today point out that the use of well in the following sentence is a typo. I think it makes sense but now I'm second guessing myself. Is this correct? If not, what would be a better way to say this: Well these rules have been in…
Blizzardengle
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Are run-on sentences always bad?

(TW, depression related stuff?) In my AP Lang class, we've recently started an activity called Visiting Author, where a student does a cold read of a piece they wrote and the others give criticism and suggestions either out loud or on paper. I…
user34214
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5 answers

How to construct quality long sentences?

I want to construct long sentences, for fiction. I do use subordinate conjunctions and coordinate conjunctions, and I also understand different kind of phrases, and grammatical rules. But I still struggle to string the phrases and clauses together…
karthik
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Which authors' style would be more appropriate for me to write in?

When I study the style of Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and other authors, I find that they use very simple language and simple words. But when I look at present day authors, such as Stephenie Meyer or Alice Munro, I find that they have a large…
kakoo bacha
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How do you use adverbs properly in fiction writing?

How do you use adverbs properly in fiction writing? In a related question, a reply states: When to use [adverbs]? When your alternative would be pretentious. There are strong nouns and verbs, that pinpoint given meaning, and there are pretentious…
elika kohen
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Must every sentence be 25 words or less?

Many books that are read today frequently use long sentences, far surpassing the 25 word limit. There is pleasure in reading such sentences, and there is pleasure in comprehending them. But oftentimes style guides tell us to limit our sentences to…
user25421
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