I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry, that is, prose—words in their best order; poetry—the best words in their best order.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
No matter what kind of words you choose when you write—abstract or concrete, discursive or representational—if you want to make magic with them, you need to know how to arrange them into effective sentences. While finding the right words for our purpose is crucial, it’s only when we get those words into the right order that they can create the spells we intend. “Open, Sesame!” makes the door to the treasure-cave creak open; “Sesame, open!” may not have the same effect. Magic can happen only when we have put the right words into “their best order.” And just as knowing how words work enables us to make choices in diction, knowing how sentences work empowers us to construct exactly the kind of sentence that we need at any given moment in our writing. So now, on our learning journey, we enter the territory of syntax, the craft of ordering words into sentences.
We’ll begin with what I’m calling “the basic sentence,” a structure that is simple in construction yet rich in possible uses. The basic English sentence is a beautiful thing. Even in its simplest form, it can communicate; and, elaborated by the mind of a master, it is capable of infinite variety and effects both subtle and profound. If you have never given much thought to how basic sentences work, you may be surprised at how easy they are to construct.
After we play with the basic sentence, we’ll turn our attention to elaborating and extending them. If you have never consciously tried to elaborate or extend a basic sentence, you will—I hope—be amazed at how many possibilities exist and how much fun you can have fooling around with them. You can expand your repertoire of sentence construction techniques very quickly, and once you have developed a feel for the available techniques, you’ll be able to choose the ones you want. Without this understanding of how sentences work, your writing will be doomed to plod along in the same old ruts. With it, though, you’ll be able to do just about anything you want to do on the page, developing your own individual style and voice.
A word of caution: There’s a great deal of material here, so don’t expect to master it all at once. You’ll probably find it helpful to go slowly, so you don’t feel overwhelmed, and to spend time with each group of practices before moving on. Remember that an intellectual knowledge of how sentences work will not, by itself, help you become a better writer. You’ve got to dig in and actually make those practice sentences, over and over, before what you have learned becomes a part of you. And so (once again!) I urge you to devote yourself to these practices and to make them an ongoing part of your writing life.