25 Great Sentences and How They Got That Way

by Geraldine Woods

Overview

A guide to the artistry that lifts a sentence from good to great.

We all know the basic structure of a sentence: a subject/verb pair expressing a complete thought and ending with proper punctuation. But that classroom definition doesn’t begin to describe the ways in which these elements can combine to resonate with us as we read, to make us stop and think, laugh or cry.

In 25 Great Sentences and How They Got That Way, master teacher Geraldine Woods unpacks powerful examples of what she instead prefers to define as “the smallest element differentiating one writer’s style from another’s, a literary universe in a grain of sand.” And that universe is very large: the hundreds of memorable sentences gathered here come from sources as wide-ranging as Edith Wharton and Yogi Berra, Toni Morrison and Yoda, T. S. Eliot and Groucho Marx.

Culled from fiction, nonfiction, drama, poetry, song lyrics, speeches, and even ads, these exemplary sentences are celebrated for the distinctive features—whether of structure, diction, connection/comparison, sound, or extremes—that underlie their beauty, resonance, and creativity. With dry humor and an infectious enjoyment that makes her own sentences a pleasure to read, Woods shows us the craft that goes into the construction of a memorable sentence. Each chapter finishes with an enticing array of exercises for those who want to test their skill at a particular one of the featured twenty-five techniques, such as onomatopoeia (in the Sound section) or parallelism (in the Structure section).

This is a book that will be treasured by word nerds and language enthusiasts, writers who want to hone their craft, literature lovers, and readers of everything from song lyrics and speeches to novels and poetry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393882377
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/26/2022
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	262,775
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Geraldine Woods has taught every level of English from fifth grade through Advanced Placement at both St. Jean Baptiste High School and The Horace Mann School in New York City. She is the author of more than fifty books, including Independent Study That Works: Designing a Successful Program, Sentence.: A Period to Period Guide to Building Better Readers and Writers, and 25 Great Sentences and How They Got That Way. She is also the creator of the Grammarian in the City blog, which explores a variety of topics related to language, grammar, and writing. She lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction xiii

Part I Structure

Pocket: Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway 3

Crossed Sentence: John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address 18

Parallelism: Li-Young Lee, "From Blossoms" 30

Reversed Sentences: Yoda, Star Wars 42

Surprise: Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey 52

Questions: Judy Blume, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret 64

Part II Diction

Valuable Verbs: Red Smith, "Dizzy Dean's Day" 77

Tone: Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery" 87

Word Shifts: James Joyce, Ulysses 97

Coinage: Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 108

Part III Sound

Onomatopoeia: Watty Piper, The Little Engine That Could 123

Matching Sounds: Martín Espada, "Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100" 135

Repetition: Jack Kerouac, On the Road 146

Part IV Connection/Comparison

First Person: J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye 159

Second Person: Lorrie Moore, "A Kid's Guide to Divorce" 171

Contrast: Neil Armstrong, First Words on the Moon 182

Negativity: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me 195

Creative Descriptions: Barbara Kingsolver, "Where It Begins" 208

Synesthesia: Robert Hayden, "Those Winter Sundays" 220

Part V Extremes

Marathon Sentences: Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" 233

Simplicity: Ann Beattie, "Learning to Fall" 247

Contradiction: Margaret Atwood, "Orphan Stories" 256

Time: Karen Salyer McElmurray, "Consider the Houses" 267

Impossibility: Toni Morrison, Beloved 279

Visual Presentation: Nicky Enright, What on Earth (have you done)? 288

Credits 299

Index of Authors and Sentence Sources 303

Editorial Reviews

"Finally, someone who appreciates the engine of a fine sentence and isn’t afraid to tinker with all the parts!"

Brenda Miller

"This delightful book surprises on nearly every page."

New York Journal of Books - Richard Cytowic

"[A] delightfully readable examination of the foundation of literary architecture for writers and language enthusiasts alike."

Poets & Writers

"Have you ever needed a book without knowing it, until it’s in your hands? 25 Great Sentences is that book. You’ll savor it. You’ll pick it up again and again."

John Allman

05/11/2020

This handy, practical guide prompts would-be writers to think critically about how to create effective and meaningful sentences. Woods (Grammar for Dummies), former director of the Horace Mann School’s Independent Study program, selects examples from novelists (Toni Morrison, Ann Beattie), journalists (Red Smith), poets (Martín Espada), and public figures (Neil Armstrong, JFK). She opens each chapter with one of the promised “25 great sentences,” providing a brief analysis of how it illustrates a certain literary device and then additional example sentences to reinforce her point. These include parallelism in Li-Young Lee’s poem “From Blossoms,” shifting word meaning in Joyce’s Ulysses (“Love loves to love love”), and onomatopoeia in Watty Piper’s The Little Engine That Could. Woods’s selections mix classroom staples (Romeo and Juliet) and contemporary classics (Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me), and she also displays a winning enthusiasm for language, as when she illustrates the coinage of new words with Phil Rizzuto’s invention of the verb nonchalanting, or provides a sidebar on the tangled etymology of the word beatnik. This volume should be helpful for students, and older readers will recall memories of favorite English teachers leading them through the intricacies of writing. Agent: Carol Collins. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"The premise of taking 25 ‘great’ sentences to study might have been limiting, but the author...explores each sentence in context, giving pertinent details and insight, and uses numerous notable sentences from other sources to illustrate similar techniques...Woods is engaging and entertaining, a self-described ‘language enthusiast’, and her dry wit lifts both the book and the reader’s spirits."

Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading

"Geraldine Woods breaks down twenty-five of the greatest sentences in the history of the written word and obsesses over them in a way that writers and nonwriters can appreciate."

David Mandel

"Using hundreds of examples from writers as diverse as Bruce Springsteen and Virginia Woolf, Geraldine Woods articulates the precise ways in which a writer can send a sentence spinning."

Mary Norris

"An inherently fascinating read for anyone with an interest in the English language and storytelling...very highly recommended, especially for community, college, and university library Grammar, Rhetoric, and Linguistics Reference collections."

Midwest Book Review

2020-04-21
A self-described "language enthusiast" analyzes memorable sentences.

Woods, author of English Grammar for Dummies, among dozens of other books on writing and literature, offers an upbeat, informative guide for writers and readers, focused on the power of sentences. Each of the 25 chapters highlights one exemplary sentence, supplemented by many others that illustrate the same technique, drawn from a capacious range of sources, including Virginia Woolf, Stephen King, Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, the King James Bible, and even ads for potato chips, candy, and soda. Woods avoids literary jargon and carefully explains terms that might be unfamiliar to nonspecialist readers. Looking at structure, for example, she identifies several interesting constructions—parallelism, reversed sentences, questions, for example—and “crossed sentences,” which she calls “the neon signs of the sentence world. They attract attention.” Her primary example is John F. Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,” and she also cites Groucho Marx: “Money will not make you happy, and happy will not make you money.” Some sentences, notes the author, succeed through surprise, such as Lucille Ball’s “The secret to staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.” A section on diction examines verbs, tone, word shifts (Gertrude Stein’s “There is no there there” is one example), and inventive coinage. Poetry appears most frequently in chapters on sound (onomatopoeia, repetition, and matching sounds) and visual presentation. A section on connection/comparison analyzes use of the first person and second person, synesthesia, and contrast—e.g., Neil Armstrong’s famous “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” A final section on “Extremes” focuses on unusually long “marathon sentences” and sentences that are marvels of concision, such as E.M. Forster’s “Only connect.” Each chapter ends with inventive writing exercises.

A practical, nonboring companion for writers aiming to hone their style.

Kirkus Reviews