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| Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash |
As usual, I'm reading two books at once. One is a non-fiction book by Ryan Holiday, the other is a novel by Penelope Fitzgerald. I love them both but for different reasons.
Generally, Ryan uses shorter sentences than Penelope. She's a brilliant writer who packs a lot of brilliance into her sentences - so much so that I savor the words a lot more, whereas I savor the message more from Ryan.
Here's what I mean:
Ryan - Outward appearances are deceptive. What's within them, beneath them, is what matters.
Penelope - She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation.
See what I mean? Both are examples of great short (ish) sentences, but different.
Seth Godin says:
The most direct way to improve your writing is to make your sentences shorter.
I was reading a magazine article yesterday and was rapidly losing interest. The topic appealed to me, but I couldn’t keep reading. Then I noticed that halfway through the first column, I was still on the same sentence.
We have trouble keeping that long a string in our heads at once.
You can make sentences too long.
But it’s hard to make them too short.
