- The key to not overwriting a sentence--to not fall in love with the language so much the sentence loses meaning--is to give and take, pick and choose, where you modify the sentence. As Gardner writes, "the writer cannot cram all three syntactic slots with details." Now, that sounds like a rule! Faulkner might disagree, as we see in the opening line of Absalom, Absalom.
Writing Exercise
- Take the following sentence and try and write the action differently by filling in different syntactical slots.
- We want three different sentences, altogether, showing different modifier choices.
Basic Sentence: Jamie sat down at the park.
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