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I’ve been thinking about sentences recently. They are, after all, the building blocks of every story ever written. We all love a good sentence, I think. I particularly like dazzlingly long [...]

Annie Dillard in her book on what it takes to be a writer, The Writing Life, recounts the story of a fellow writer who was asked, “Do you think I could be a writer?” The response was: [...]

I’ve been saying this a great deal to our mentoring participants recently: don’t weigh down your sentences. Don’t rush to get all you can into one sentence. Slow down, break things up and you’ll [...]

I was recently accused of being the enemy of subordinate clauses. I’d like to make this clear: I don’t hate complex sentences, certainly not as a matter of principle. But when you’re mentoring a [...]