Customer Reviews

Stunning Sentences (The Effective Writing Series)

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I wanted to like this book - a great title, and the promise of techniques such as "stark attachments" and "dramatic flourishes." And there's a lot to like, here: the classification scheme is unique and clever, and examples are plentiful and chosen from a variety of fields and sources. People who learn from loosely organized collections of examples may find this book quite helpful. However, I was disappointed:

- The author's classification scheme is clever and memorable, but it works at cross-purposes with traditional grammatical classification; matters of sentence structure, diction, voice, and punctuation may all be mixed together in a single chapter. Also, the chapters do not appear to be in any logical order.

- While the introduction and first chapter are rather chatty, after that, the author's tone tends to be somewhat formal.

- The author argues up-front for "25 words or less" as the ideal sentence length, yet many of his examples and quite a bit of his own commentary on those examples violate this guideline.

- All the tools for improving sentences - over 50 of them - are covered in a mere 45 pages (the "94 pages" stated length includes all front *and* back matter).

- Finally, while I found a great many competent, effective sentences in this book, I can't recall being **stunned** by a single one.

Perhaps we're all so inured to TV-style marketing hype that we don't expect a book to deliver contents commensurate with the title's promise, but this title seems a bit pretentious, even so. The book has its moments, and the generous offering of examples is perhaps the book's strongest point. But overall, it seemed, well, hasty. I expected more, and the reader deserves more.

"Stunning Sentences: The Effective Writing Series", by Bruce Ross-Larson, NY: WW Norton & Co., 1999 - ISBN 0-393-31795-1 PB, 94 Pg. (8.1" x 5.5"). It (book) actually started on pg. 13, two Exemplars used 10 pg., & finally "Sources" consumed 14 pg., -- so you only get 58 pg. as a brochure or booklet (not a book).

"Stunning Sentences" covers: Approach, Common Form, Short Form, Dramatic Flourishes, Elegant Repeats, Credible Quotes, Conversational Injections, Stark Attaches, Deft Connects, & One-syllable Openers. (Author's 'Injections' seemingly variant interjections & asides).

Author offers "hundreds of sample sentences cataloged by type" & "this book will show you patterns...in good writing"...& "how you can...write with precision & eloquence." The author offers "many tools...to create...rhythm...& balance...& build...individual style."

Author reports his credentials as "Founder of the Amnerican Writing Institute", but his booklet (at least for me) missed its mark & was neither inspirational nor elegant. What I learned was the author's preoccupation, praise & prediliction for: "The Economist" (74 citations), "New York Times" magazine" (44 cit.), "New Yorker" magazine (15 cit.), "New York Times" (10 cit.), "New York Book Review" (8 cit.), & a few others. Why any author would choose to fill 1/4 of a booklet with such extensive citations is unreasonable (unless to avoid plagarism) & is not evidence of originality (perhaps novelty was sought?).

Alternative? If you desire help on writing skills do consider: "The Little Red Writing Book" by Brandon Royal -- it has much more to offer (see my recent review on "TLRWB").

Any one expects that a book about good writing is in itself a model of good writing, in which clarity and elegance is inmediately obvious to the eye. Nevertheles, as soon as you open this book, you will find a gross and hurting defect: the author talks using typeface x; the examples are written also with typeface x, so the reader can not distinguish he started reading an example; then, when the author talks again, to comment or explain the example, uses italics, which most authors use for examples. So the text is an irritating mess.

The book has segments like the following (since italics is not available, I will represent it with UPPERCASE):

<<start----------

Simplest, and thus clearest, the direct sentence has one main clause and is the starting point for countless variants.

Smart eateries are puting peculiar mushrooms on the menu.

HARD TO GET MORE DIRECT THAN THIS: WHO IS DOING WHAT OT WHAT AND WHERE.

---------end>>

<<start--------

The second common variant to the direct sentence is to add a comment or definition by means of a WHICH clause.

The book also suffers more than usual from Elshtain's prose style, WHICH IS EARNEST AT BEST AND PLODDING AT WORST

SET OFF BY COMMAS, THE which CLAUSE CAN BE LEFT OUT WITHOUT DISRUPTING THE MEANING OF THE MAIN CLAUSE.

------end>>

This is a very dumb style for writing a book; even worse, if it is one about good writing.

In an attempt to make the book somewhat readable, I had to draw a box around every example.

Afterwards, I find that most of the recommendations are amateurish, without any logical, nor grammar support, but just the supposedly "exquisite" author's taste. He says that the key to improve our writing is unexpectedness; and his main way to be unexpected is violating grammar. One of his "stunning" sentences is

<<<All the crusading doesn't reassure the public. JUST THE OPPOSITE.>>

He says JUST THE OPPOSITE is a stunning sentence (even when it is not a sentence) because he removed the verb that everybody is expecting.

As reader, I would find more elegant the normal way of writing

<< All the crusading does not reassure the public; it is just the opposite.>>

Other of his "great" recommendations are faulty reestatements of the standard writing rules, as for example:

<<Her novels REGISTERED these events most secretly, her letters not at all.>

The correct, also more elegant, way of writing this is:

<<Her novels REGISTERED these events most secretly; her letters, not at all.>

where, as it is known, the comma after the semicolon indicates that the verb of the previous sentence is implicitly repetead.

Use your money in another book instead of this.

I found the book invaluable, almost inspirational in its zeal to encourage good writing on the "micro" rather than the "macro" level. The explanatory material is succinct and the examples informative. My one complaint would be that too many examples of "stunning sentences" are culled from The Economist, certainly not the only available model for first-rate prose.

This book provides many examples of sentence structures that will provide writers with new ideas for making more effective reports, essays, and letters.

The vocabulary is created for the book. Terms such as simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex are mentioned in the introduction, but the author creates new terms to help writers think of sentences in a new way. For example, the author explains "recast" and "conditioned" sentences as variations that can be used to spice things up. The lack of the standard terms does not make this book more difficult.

I would recommend this book to students and writers. The author explains each structure and gives examples. Rather than being read once and putting it away, this book should be kept as a reference. Your writing will improve!

This slim and inexpensive volume reviews many effective but under-utilized sentence structures, pointing out the situations in which each is most suitable. You will begin to notice the techniques in everything you read. It's the best guide I've seen for writing-in-the-small.

This book is ideal for a writer who already understands how to make his writing clear but wants to learn how to make his sentences sparkle.