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Authors' Paradize
A collection of book reviews, releases and stories of authors and great books.


Change it up

How often do you start your sentences with the word 'she'? She did this. She did that. She did this other thing. Bland, repetitive sentence style will kill your chances of producing a piece of writing that will get sold. Here are ten different ways to write the same sentence.

  • Start with the subject. This is the most common method and is overused.
    - She (or Kate) stepped carefully through the train cars searching for her private compartment.
  • Start with a propositional phrase (About, above, across, after... etc.)
    - From the moment she boarded the train, Kate had a hard time finding her private compartment
  • Start with an adjective or adjective phrase.
    - Dim hallways made it difficult for Kate to find her private train compartment.
  • Start with an adverb or adverbial phrase.
    - Stepping carefully through the dim hallways of the moving train, Kate could not find her private compartment.
  • Start with a gerund. Gerunds are the -ing form of the verb and are used as if they were nouns.
    - Finding her private train compartment seemed to be out of the question for Kate.

  • Start with an infinitive phrase, which is 'to' plus the verb.
    To find her private compartment, Kate knew she had to trav-erse the entire length of the four passenger cars.
  • Start with a present participle phrase, which is the -ing form of the verb used as an adjective.
    Studying her ticket, Kate was unable to find any information that would help her locate her private train compartment.
  • Start with a past participle, which is the -ed form of the verb.
    Frustrated with the difficulty she was having finding her private train compartment, Kate decided to ask the nice looking man seated in the first row.
  • Start with an adverbial clause (because, wherever although, if, before... etc.)
    When Kate gave up hope of finding her private train com-partment herself, she decided to ask the good looking man seated in the front row for help.
  • Start with an appositive which is two nouns or noun phrases referring to the same thing.
    Frustrated and tired, Kate decided to ask the good looking man in the front row seat to help her find her private compartment.

    Little did Kate know, he was a killer!

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Any facts, figures or references stated here are made by the author & don't reflect the endorsement of iU at all times unless otherwise drafted by official staff at iU. This article was first published here on September 2013.
Jody Lebel
Jody Lebel is a contributing writer at Inspiration Unlimited eMagazine

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