Gary Provost, author of Make Your Words Work, made a career of offering great writing advice, including: “Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.” This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Gary Provost Writing Advice”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Here’s some great writing advice from Gary Provost. He’s the author of such books as Make Your Words Work. And I think you’ll appreciate this, Grant.
This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine, but several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony.
I use short sentences, and I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I’m certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of drums, the crash of cymbals, sounds that say, listen to this, it is important.
Oh, that’s nice. Isn’t that great? It’s true. It’s really true. And I find that when I read my son’s books and I try to figure out what it is about some books that make them easy to read aloud and some books makes them very difficult to read aloud, it’s exactly what Gary says. It’s sentence length. It’s word length. The person who seems to have a limited idea of the sounds of English is the one that I can’t read aloud.
Right, right. It is about music and rhythm. It could have been written by a computer. Yeah, and they’re missing the joy. I think that’s what the other thing is. It comes naturally to you to write in that musical way if you really enjoy language. Right, if you enjoy speaking, too. If you enjoy speaking, yeah. It’s more natural that way.
What’s his website again? His website is garyprovost.com. And he’s got a ton of books about writing and writing well. Yes, he’s passed on, but his advice lives on. Excellent. Online. That’s what we all hope for. Thanks, Gary.
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