San Francisco, 11:34 PM
Mon Nov 30
26 posts in the last 24 hours
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| posts about #freeadviceforwhatitsworth more → |
The One Sentence That Can Ruin Your Whole Day |
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8 Unstoppable Rules For Writing Killer Short Stories |
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io9 
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Clearly you should have also taken Literature 144: Robots.
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I don't even read any books I can't download in Amazon Newspeak.
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Then again if the authors of law books actually followed the rules that fiction writers do then reading their books in the first place would have been much more easy and take much less time.
10/07/09
I, generally, do not use topic sentences when I write fiction. This is not because of any perceived utility or lack thereof, but purely out of spite towards my middle-school English teachers.
10/07/09
10/07/09
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Re: "If we're going to distinguish between an action-based sentence and a thematic or descriptive first sentence, then aren't we suggesting criteria for good topic sentences, rather than criteria for whether or not a topic sentence should be used?"
A topic sentence isn’t the same as "the first sentence in any paragraph". The article describes a topic sentence as "a single pithy sentence that sums up the rest of the paragraph", action-based or no. There are two things there that make a topic sentence hazardous for use in fiction:
First, because the topic sentence sums up the paragraph, it is by its very nature rather redundant. That’s dangerous. As CJA says, topic sentences can be used (carefully and sparingly) for effect, but you do not want every paragraph in your fiction to say something, and then say the exact same thing again in more words.
Second, there’s the idea that it’s a pithy summation. If your paragraph can be distilled down to one sentence without losing anything, then why did you write a paragraph in the first place? It’s fiction, not an essay; you don’t need to present supporting evidence for your every point. On the other hand, if the paragraph can’t be distilled down that way, then you’ve just reduced your beautiful prose to an awkward shadow of itself by trying. And then tacked that awkward shadow up for display next to the original. Bad.
So, in closing, here’s my topic sentence for this post: "Be wary of topic sentences in your novels, for using them recklessly leads to redundancy and awkward prose."
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... that could work.
10/07/09
Chapter 1:
Captain Jordan was terribly horny. His throbbing tumescence had angered the ancient powers of the Island of Ryla, and now he faced an army of the underworld's chastest ghosts...
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And thus begins a horrible derailment of this particular thread.
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Sorry, I was just trying to turn grey_area's sand thing into a Chuck Palahniuk-style "mantra"
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*ahem* I had tons of problems with topic sentences back in grade school. My paragraphs tended to simply restate, over and over, the topic sentence, with a little bit of extra meat thrown in there for variety. I still suck at writing, but Strunk & White helped me out tons. I still have a 3rd edition handy in my cube at all times.
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