What are the hallmarks of a good sentence?
I recently set out on a “journey” to find out.
I mostly read books on Kindle, and when I come across a good sentence, I highlight it. I’ve done this for years.
But I don’t always look back at what I’ve highlighted.
So, I wondered …
What would I discover if I traveled through my highlighted sentences?
Good sentences are the foundation of good writing
The main task of a good sentence is to convey meaning. As Joe Moran writes in his book First You Write a Sentence:
A sentence is a small, sealed vessel for holding meaning.
Yet, studying sentences in isolation can feel weird because we usually read sentences in context. A good sentence connects to both the previous and the next sentence. It’s only one carriage in a long train.
When I started reviewing my highlighted sentences, I realized I often highlight a paragraph rather than just one sentence; and the sentences don’t always work on their own.
But the very best sentences stand out and convey meaning—even out of context.
Here are my favorites …
Sentence #1: Sensory appeal
One of the first books I read this year was The Offing by Benjamin Myers. This sensory sentence hums with a quiet melancholy:
Sitting here now by the open window, a glissando of birdsong on the very lightest of breezes that carries with it the scent of a final incoming summer, I cling to poetry as I cling to life.
In one sentence, Myers describes a visual detail (an open window), an auditory detail (a glissando of birdsong), a scent (the scent of a final incoming summer), and a sense of motion or touch (the lightest breeze). These sensory descriptions transport readers, letting them experience the story as if they’re there.
After the sensory description, the sentence ends with the key point: I cling to poetry as I cling to life.
There’s meaning and poetry in one sentence. A beauty.
Sentence #2: A journey in one sentence
I read Tommy Orange’s book There There over two years ago.
And when I decided to write this post with my favorite sentences, I instantly knew I wanted to include this sentence:
It’s important that he dress like an Indian, dance like an Indian, even if it is an act, even if he feels like a fraud the whole time, because the only way to be Indian in this world is to look and act like an Indian.
Why do I like this sentence so much?
This sentence is brimming with tension. What does it mean to be an Indian? What’s real? What’s a fraud?
I love how this sentence races ahead, leaving you almost out of breath while reading. The repetition of phrases—like an Indian, even if—gives the sentence a strong rhythm. Again, there’s both poetry and meaning in one sentence.
Sentence #3: The broken beauty
Your high-school teacher may have told you off for writing an incomplete sentence.
But not every sentence needs to be complete.
Here’s an example from Sayaka Murata’s Convenience Store Woman:
From the tinkle of the door chime to the voices of TV celebrities advertising new products over the in-store cable network, to the calls of the store workers, the beeps of the bar code scanner, the rustle of customers picking up items and placing them in baskets, and the clacking of heels walking around the store.
I remember I highlighted this sentence because I liked the auditory description—the tinkle, the chime, the voices, the beeps, the rustle, the clacking of heels. I’m pretty sure, at the time, I didn’t realize this sentence doesn’t include a subject nor a verb.
But what’s wrong with that?
A good sentence can be “broken.” Not every sentence needs a subject and a verb.
Sentence #4 and #5: The suspense
The first sentence of How to Kidnap the Rich by Rahul Raina is probably the best first sentence I’ve read this year so far:
The first kidnapping wasn’t my fault.
These 6 words conjure up so many questions that I had to read on: Why was the first kidnapping the fault of the protagonist? Why were there more kidnappings? And why were those kidnappings his fault? What the hell is going on here?
A good first sentence pulls readers into a story by raising so many questions that readers have to read on.
The best first sentence I read last year also raises questions; it’s from Tayari Jones’s book Silver Sparrow:
My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist.
Uhm … how? Why? How did you find out? And what happened next?
Sentence #6: The cliff edge
One of the best memoirs I’ve read recently is Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime. This is the 6th sentence:
I was nine years old when my mother threw me out of a moving car.
This sentence is an irresistible invitation to read on. Don’t you want to know what the hell is going on here?
Perhaps that’s a key lesson here: Every good sentence is an invitation to read the next.
Sentence #7: Precision
I read A Rose for Winter by Laurie Lee earlier this year.
I had never read one of Lee’s books before, and I found this book a little tedious.
However, one beautiful scene about a guitar lesson stuck with me. Here’s the second sentence of that scene, in which Lee describes the arrival of his guitar teacher:
Each day, at the stroke of ten, he knocked softly at my door and entered on tiptoe, as though into a sick room, carrying his guitar-case like a doctor’s bag.
This sentence contains a lot of detail in quick succession. The sentence specifies the time (each day, at the stroke of ten), where it takes place (where the author is staying), the action (the teacher knocks and enters), and how that action takes place (on tiptoe as though into a sick room, carrying his guitar-case like a doctor’s bag).
The writing is precise without becoming flowery. I like it!
Sentence #8: The surprise
I felt like I couldn’t write a post about my favorite sentences without including Raymond Chandler.
Chandler is not one of my favorite writers, not by a long stretch. But I do admire his writing style, and how he uses surprising imagery. I like his sentences better than his books.
This is from Farewell, My Lovely:
Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food.
I like the phrase “not the quietest dressed street”—it concisely communicates that people on this street may dress extravagantly without even referring to people.
But the best part of the sentence comes at the end: The ridiculous imagery of a large hairy spider on a slice of angel food. How on earth did Chandler think of that?
Sentence #9: The question
When we think of sentences, we usually think of statements.
But questions are sentences, too.
And questions are much undervalued in writing.
I bought the book The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down by Haemin Sunim after I’d seen this question quoted:
Is it the world that’s busy, or is it my mind?
Questions can arouse curiosity, engage readers, and make them think. The question above lingered in my mind for a long time. That’s what a good question does.
Sentence #10 and #11: Wisdom
My favorite book of the year so far is The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer.
I wanted to include it in this blog post but I struggled to choose only one sentence, so I’m cheating and including two pieces of wisdom:
In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow.
And:
Going nowhere, as Leonard Cohen would later emphasize for me, isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.
Iyer’s book is about living life more fully by slowing down, embracing stillness, going nowhere, and being more present. The two sentences above sum up the wisdom in the book.
There’s a touch of poetry, too, as the concept of speed contrasts with going slow; and the idea of stepping away contrasts with loving the world more. Contrast is a poetic technique that can add drama and magic to our words.
I love these two sentences by Iyer mostly because of their wisdom. But there’s a quiet gentleness in the writing and a touch of poetry, too.
A good sentence is an adventure
What have I learned from my journey through my highlighted sentences?
As the sentences above show, there’s not just one way to write a good sentence. A good sentence can be long or short, and it can even be broken. There’s rhythm, sensory appeal, and poetry—even in prose.
Above all, a good sentence takes readers on an adventure, inviting them to read the next sentence.
Strong imagery makes that adventure more real, allowing readers to experience a story and expand their horizons.
And a nugget of wisdom contained in a sentence can nudge readers to reflect, allowing them to embark on an inner adventure.
A good sentence is both beautiful and meaningful.
Happy adventures, my friend.
Bonus sentence examples
As I’m continuing my adventure through sentences and books, I’m adding more sentence examples below. Enjoy!
I love the personification in this sentence from Elif Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees:
When the night kissed your skin, as it always did, you could smell the jasmine on its breath.
The love of and respect for nature is woven through Robin Wall Kimmerer’s writing. In her opening paragraph of the book Braiding Sweetgrass, she describes the fragrance of sweetgrass:
Breathe it in and you start to remember things you didn’t know you’d forgotten.
So much truth in this sentence from Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson:
Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.
Colson Whitehead is a great stylist and he characterizes people well. This is from Harlem Shuffle:
Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked, in practice and ambition.
I love the idea of living by and inside a story. This sentence is from This is Happiness by Niall Williams:
We all have to find a story to live by and live inside, or we couldn’t endure the certainty of suffering.
And this first sentence from Free by Lea Ypi raises so many questions that I’m eager to read on:
I never asked myself about the meaning of freedom until the day I hugged Stalin.
In the following sentence, Barney Ronay characterizes Jafarieh, a health guru (from The Guardian):
Jafarieh is a familiar type, the magnetic personality, the handsome and piercing spirit guide who accepts all major credit cards and looks like he might smell of musk and whale-song and concentrated human-power while he stands slightly too close to you in the lift.
You can picture him now, right?
What makes the characterization so strong:
- The surprising contrast between the spirit guide and accepting all major credit cards
- The multi-sensory details: the smell of musk, whale-song, and concentrated human-power
- The strong visual imagery at the end: I feel myself cringe when imagining being in the lift with this health guru
Books mentioned in this post:
- First You Write a Sentence by Joe Moran (recommended)
- The Offing by Benjamin Myers (highly recommended)
- There There by Tommy Orange (highly recommended)
- Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (recommended)
- How to Kidnap the Rich by Rahul Raina (highly recommended)
- Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones (highly recommended)
- Born a Crime by Trevor Noah (highly recommended)
- A Rose for Winter: Travels in Andalusia by Laurie Lee
- Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
- The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down by Haemin Sunim (recommended)
- The Art of Stillness by Pico Iyer (highly recommended)
- The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak (highly recommended)
- Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (highly recommended)
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson (highly recommended)
- Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (highly recommended)
- This Is Happiness by Niall Williams (recommended)
- Free by Lea Ypi (recommended)
More examples of good sentences:
How to write concisely
How to write a sparkling sentence
How to write a clincher sentence
Hi Henneke,
What a great article! I have been trying to improve my writing skills, and I learned a lot from this resource. I love how you shared the sentence type, and examples to get through to the reader. It was very informational and taught me a lot. This was a great read.
Thank you, John. I’m glad you enjoyed these sentence examples. Happy writing!
I think your presentation on the value of a sentence or rather the value of the purpose of a sentence relates beautifully to my own view of how words transport us to an experience. I
am impressed how you have plucked a chord in my view of how one should communicate.
I’m glad this resonated with you, Paul. Thank you for stopping by.
Hello Henneke,
This is my first time visiting your site and have to say I am so happy to have found it! I love your examples in this post and your explanations of why/what makes the sentences great pieces of writing. Thank you.
SharlaAnn
Welcome, SharlaAnn, and thank you so much for leaving a comment on your very first visit. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed this post. Happy writing!
Yes, not too flowery, that is how I like them too.
At the moment I am reading Bleak House by Dickens and it is amazing how often en how long he uses repetition. But since he does it in a subtly sarcastic and original way, he never fails to amuse me.
I didn’t know that about Dickens but it’s been a very very long time since I’ve read any Dickens.
I’ve never been a regular reader, but this article of yours made me want to give books a chance 🙂
Happy reading, Sabrina!
Sentence #8: Surprise
Indeed you’re a leader leading by action.
Poor Chandler. You love his sentences better than his books – but how is that possible? The sentences compiled make up his books. ( You’re full of surprises 😀)
Henneke, you have a firm grasp of the ideas you share. I enjoy reading your posts. Thank you
Thank you for reading and for your compliment, Deniz.
On Chandler’s books: I like how he writes sentences but I find the narrative a little slow and complicated. Maybe I’m just a little impatient as a reader but for me a story has to keep me intrigued and make me want to read more. Reading his books feels like a little too much work for me, even though I do admire his writing style.
A great post! Thanks for reminding me of one more tweak I need to do in my writing. I had a feeling that I was missing something, and you hit the mark.
You’re making me curious, Wally. What was missing? What’s the tweak?
The tweak was to focus more on the sentences as sentences, as entities in themselves. It makes good sense.
But here’s something else. I am writing a rough draft right now, but I am using as much sensory language as I can think of, and you know, it turns the act of writing into an act of fun. I can only hope that whoever reads my article will enjoy the reading as much as I am enjoying the writing.
Thanks for all the good advice. And Viva sensory language!
I like your tweak to focus more on the sentences as sentences. That’s a good takeaway. Some people find it useful to start each sentence on a new line; just to make it easier to evaluate (not to publish that way).
I’m glad you’re enjoying your writing! 🙂
I love the way you pay attention to how sentences sound, their poetry, their rhythms, the senses they make and unmake in the questions, contradictions, and puzzles they propose, only to be resolved later. To be a person who notices things, and notices the words that stands for those things, directly and indirectly, I suppose. To dismiss a whole book but to underline the poignant line, the paragraph that isn’t, that hasn’t a subject or a verb, that’s suggestive or indexical, a finger pointing at a theme or two, an idea perhaps or a feeling sense, maybe an atmosphere or two, inhabited by a personality, told in the rounding curvature of her words, like the cat sitting there silently with her back in sinusoidal, signature vigilance…
Thank you so much for your comment, Kenny. I like how you’re summarizing this post in a few sentence, and I love your comparison with the vigilant cat 🙂 Indeed, good writing starts with paying attention, with noticing. It feels to me like a real privilege to study writing and write about what I like so much about good writing.
Your excellent (as usual) article made me immediately think of ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ by Bernardine Evaristo. An example of a sentence:
they made her feel crushed, worthless and a nobody
without saying a word to her
without even noticing her
I found the lack of beginning capital letters, full stops and speech marks very easy to get used to and felt somehow more ‘invited’ into the writing, if that makes sense. Have you read any of her work?
Sentence #6 – My husband reckons he was pushed out of a moving car at 5 years old by a ‘horrible aunt’. I have suggested if he ever writes about his childhood, he start with that sentence!
Thank you, stay safe. Always a pleasure to see Henrietta.
I loved Girl, Woman, Other, too! And just like you, it was easy to get used to the lack of capitals and full stops. It only irritated me for a couple of pages 🙂
Your comment made me curious whether I had highlighted anything in the book. It was this sentence: Yazz was a delight when she was pre-verbal, less so when she discovered the power of words
I agree with your suggestion to your husband. That would make a great first sentence. I’d love to hear the story.
Thank you for stopping by again, Susan. Always good to see you. Henrietta says hello!
Thank you Henneke for this very special post. My favorite is “The first kidnapping wasn’t my fault.” And the second one “Is it the world that is busy or is it mind?
All of them left me wondering If I can write so fantastic first sentences.
Stephen King once said that he can spent several months writing the first sentence of a new book. I don’t know about the sentences in this post but they probably didn’t flow out of a writer’s brain just like that. They probably were edited in multiple rounds, possibly with the help of an editor.
But not every sentence has to be that good. There are books that I love, and I’ve not highlighted a single sentence that stood out to me. Just like there are books that I don’t like but I do love some of the sentences.
Writing better sentences starts with paying attention to sentences and trying to figure out why you like them (or why not).
Thank you for stopping by, Tarcisio.
I love your lessons here , Henneke.
I owe to you back all this great mood arriving on my face, each time i receive a bouquet of precious email like this one. Thanx so much cause you help me giving shape to my book. I prepare one by pure passion for the next year. Greetings from shinny Greece!
Thank you for your lovely compliment, Marya. I’m glad you’re enjoying my writing. Happy writing!
Hi Henneke,
Sentence #11 sang to me. There’s a soft tension between turning away and turning toward–a tension results in greater love and appreciation. So true.
Thank you again, my friend. This is another beautiful post. Thank you.
I love how you put that, Julia: “A soft tension between turning away and turning toward–a tension results in greater love and appreciation.”
Have you read any of Pico Iyer’s work? I think you may like this book on the art of stillness.
I haven’t but as soon as I read this sentence, I ordered this book from the library. It seems like I’ll enjoy it.
Thank you for the recommendation.
Happy reading!
A delightful post as always. I’m tempted to splurge and buy every book you recommended simply to enjoy the thrill of reading them all.
Thank you for your lovely compliment, Poovanesh. Isn’t it fascinating how reading just one sentence makes us want to read the whole book? I hope you’ll enjoy at least a couple of them!
Sentence seven: You got me thinking, being precise, descriptively so, fills in the gaps. I don’t believe I have ever seen a doctor’s bag, let alone one carried by a doctor, in real life. Probably only in one, or several, of those period pieces on telly. But the rest of the sentence, because of its precise nature, paints a picture as well as a movie scene might.
How interesting. I instantly have a picture in my mind of what a doctor’s bag looks like. Perhaps that’s because my father used to be a GP? He had an old-fashioned doctor’s bag.
Yes, I have a picture in my mind too. I see a squat, rectangular, metal-edged mouth that folds/comes together with a clasp and sturdy handle rather than a strap. Black rather than brown, I have a brown one that may have been someone’s lunch bag, but is what I imagine an old doctor’s bag might be like. After all, we sometimes construct recollections from what people have told us or what we have seen or read in fiction; so, while compelling and real to us, not always reliable.
I’m sure your memories ARE real, having had a GP as a Dad.
Still, your point is that the precision paints the picture, no matter what a doctor’s bag looks like, the fact that it is carried on tiptoe, as if entering a sick room, and as a doctors bag might contain fragile contents, the guitar case is treated similarly. Perhaps (my mental picture) carried at arm’s length, low and carefully, stoop-shouldered and with eyes averted. – A bit different to entering the room without knocking, twenty minutes late as if entering a noisy pub ready for a lark, carrying the guitar case like a sailor’s duffle bag. Haha. Thanks for your insights.
Oh yes, my memories are real. I somehow just assumed that everyone would have a similar picture of a doctor’s bag. But, as you say, even if they don’t, it doesn’t really matter. The whole picture is clear, and every reader can fill in the rest. That’s what I like so much about writing. In a movie, you see the whole picture on screen. In a book, the writer lets the reader’s imagination fill in the missing pieces. There’s a special cooperation between writer and reader who are shaping the story together.
I’m enjoying this…Sentence six: Irresistible invitation! Are you kidding? More like, “What the farrrk, she did what!!?”
And he has a very close relationship with his mother! You’ll have to read the book to find out more 🙂
Sentence three: I recently watched Ken Burns’s documentary on Hemingway. Your example and comment on broken sentences and the linked article, rule number two, reminded me of how the actor, speaking the voice of Ernest, made his words sound.
Like passing cars on a country road. Each thought its own entity. Like the cars. Each in a hurry. But the traffic is light. So, on the whole, it was a lazy day.
I haven’t seen the documentary yet but definitely want to see it. I’ve heard a lot about it. In The Old Man and the Sea, Hemingway uses short sentences, and he carefully communicates only one nugget of information in each sentence. I’m planning to write another post about this principle.
I really enjoyed the doco. It is available free on SBS On Demand (www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/hemingway) for a few more months. Typical of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, it is exceptionally well researched, beautifully shot and narrated and with wonderful interviews. It was interesting to hear the differing opinions of interviewees, as to which of Hemingway’s books were great or best and why they thought so.
I reckon I have read a post of yours in the past that refers to Old Man and the Sea.
It’s also available here in the UK on the BBC i-player. It’s come out a bit later than in the US. Thanks for the nudge to watch it!
And yes, I wrote about The Old Man and the Sea: https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/write-like-hemingway/ (I just checked; I wrote it 4 years ago. How time flies.)
Thank you for all the good tips. I always look forward to receiving your emails!
Thank you, Jasmine. I appreciate your lovely compliment.
In the first sentence: “…the scent of a final incoming summer”, is much more than a simple sensory descriptor; it also tells a story, it carries with it a sense of foreboding, a premonition or expectancy of death. This is reinforced with, “I cling to poetry as I cling to life.” The latter ‘clinging to life’ is the desperate attempt to delay the inevitability that the former alludes to, that is, ‘I’ll be dead in less than a year’.
Beautiful, and a beautiful choice.
Yes to all of that. One could probably write a whole blog post about just that one sentence. I love your idea of a whole story in one sentence.
I highly recommend Myers’ book.
I’ll have to read it for sure, now. Just to make sure he’s not talking of something else.