1.
It was the work of the rushing gust--but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the Lady Madeline of Usher.
2.
There was blood upon her white robes and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame.
3.
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell, the huge antique panels to which the speaker pointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws.
4.
For a moment she remained trembling and reeling and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated, then, with a low, moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse
1.
The wind died as quickly as it had come, and the clearing was quiet again. The heron, motionless and waiting, stood in the shallows. Turning its head from side to side, a little water snake swam up the pool.
2.
Behind us was the town of Castle Rock, surrounding its green and shady common, spread out on the long hill that was known as Castle View. You could see the stacks of the wooled mew spewing smoke into a sky the color of gunmetal and spewing waste into the water further down Castle River. The Jolly Furniture Barn was on our left, and straight ahead of it, bright and heliographing in the sun, were the railroad tracks.
3.
Agatha watched for the star, standing at the front window and holding back the curtain. Because the sky stayed light for so long that the stars would more or less melt into view, in the summertime she had to be alert. Sometimes Thomas waited, too. No matter how often she warned him not to, he said his wishes aloud. As if the sky were one big Sears, he wished for definite objects--toys and candy and such. On the other hand, Agatha wished silently, and not even in words. In a strong wash of feeling, she wished.
[Though grammatically correct, nearly all the changes I've made worsen the writing. And why? Because, most often, I have taken modification (in the form of adjective phrases or adverb clauses) that appears toward the end of a sentence and moved it up. Something else to remember is that fluid writing comes not so much from phrase/clause variation but from sentence length. Most sentences (say 75%) will start with the subject.]
4.
At the admission gate, we paid our dollars, and like famished beggars at a feast, threw ourselves into the carnival. Over our heads like trapped stars, the strings of lightbulbs gleamed. Along with their parents, a lot of kids our age were there, and some older people and highschool kids, too. The rides grunted, clattered, and rattled around us. We bought our tickets and got on the Ferris wheel, and I made the mistake of sitting with Davy Ray. He grinned and started rocking us back and forth and yelling that the bolts were about to come loose when we got to the very top and the wheel paused to allow riders on the bottommost gondola.
[It's nearly always preferable to start with the main clause and the subject. By starting with an inverted element--or by starting with an adjective phrase--you give your readers a moment of uncertainty. They are forced to contend with the modification before they get the modified thing. Sentences that don't start with the main clause and subject create tension. Such tension can be useful, but should probably be present one out of four sentences. In the above PP, when the writer does start with a dependent clause, then that clause does special work to set up a strong moment. Now that I've flipped the order, the sentence looks dead because the exciting part comes first and the set up comes later. So make sure dependent clauses--when they come first--set up something that's worth the set up. And, probably, if the dependent clause comes after the independent clause, then there should be a payoff at the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment