In Grammar you built compound-complex sentences; in Concision you cut needless words. Sentence variety puts the shapes to work: a mix of lengths and structures that keeps readers alert and shows how your ideas connect.
Key idea
Vary sentence length and structure on purpose: longer sentences to connect related ideas, short ones for emphasis, and different openings so not every sentence starts with its subject.
Why it works
A string of same-length sentences sounds like a drumbeat, and readers stop hearing it. Variety does more than add music: joining ideas shows their logic (cause, contrast, time), and a short sentence after long ones tells the reader “this matters.”
Ways to open a sentence
- With the subject: The volunteers stacked sandbags all night.
- With a phrase: Through the night, volunteers stacked sandbags.
- With a dependent clause: As the creek rose, volunteers stacked sandbags.
- With a participle phrase: Working through the night, volunteers stacked sandbags.
Worked example: A short sentence for emphasis
Lincoln, 1865: “Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.” Why end with four words?
- The first sentence is long and balanced, weighing the two sides.
- Then four plain words: “And the war came.”
- The sudden short sentence lands like a blow, and makes the war seem to arrive on its own, after all the weighing.
Answer: The short sentence, after a long one, gives the war’s arrival the weight of a single blow.
Common mistake
Starting every sentence with the subject, or writing every sentence the same length, so the prose plods. The opposite slip is variety for its own sake: a fancy opening that hides the point. Check: read a paragraph aloud. Where it drones, combine; where an idea matters most, give it a short sentence.