Making writing excellent be

Let’s start with something that good is not.

The Phantom Menace was a big disappointment to me. My friends and I saw it the day it came out. We tried to pretend it was a decent movie. We had to eventually admit it was horrible. George Lucas completely ruined my childhood.

Sentence 1: 9 words Sentence 2: 11 words Sentence 3: 9 words Sentence 4: 8 words Sentence 5: 6 words

Problem #1: Unvaried sentence lengths.

Solution #1: Combine sentences.

The Phantom Menace was a big disappointment. We tried to pretend it was a decent movie when we saw it the day it came out, but we had to eventually admit it was horrible. George Lucas completely ruined my childhood.

Solution #2: Vary sentence types.

A major disappointment Phantom Menace was. Even though we tried to pretend it was a decent movie, we had to eventually admit it was horrible. George Lucas—for reasons that defy rational thought—ruined my childhood.

Types of sentences to try Left-branching

Despite the fact that I kept my Boba Fett action figure long past the time considered age-appropriate, I still hated Phantom Menace.

Types of sentences to try Right-branching—loose sentence

I hated Phantom Menace, hated it with a passion that consumed suns, hated it with the jilted fury of a abandoned lover.

Types of sentences to try Middle-branching—interruptions

Phantom Menace, a misbegotten movie that should have never seen the light of day, still made over a billion dollars.

Types of sentences to try Parallel Structures

Phantom Menace poisons the minds of the young and made over a billion dollars.

Types of sentences to try Semicolons

Phantom Menace lacks sophistication in characterization; it lacks plausability of plot.

Types of sentences to try Colons

The character of Watto is offensive in so many ways: the accent, the facial features, the greedy personality.

Types of sentences to try Em-dash

The best part of the movie—even if the movie mostly wasted him—was Darth Maul.

The Phantom Menace was a big disappointment to me. The moment JarJar Binks loped onto the screen and slurred “Mesa called Jar-Jar Binks. Mesa your humble servant” I knew that my childhood was completely and irrevocable ruined. o

Problem #3: No specific examples

Your turn 1) Count the number of words per sentence. 2) Identify your sentence beginnings. 3) Identify the places where you used specific examples.