Source: Great Expectations (1917 film), PD-US, Wikimedia
In the absence of absolute recipes for sentence structure, you have to rely on your ears as you draft sentences. Reading your sentences aloud will help you create the most effective structures, combining ideas with balance, flow, and rhythm. Another way to practice developing good sentences is by reading some model sentences by writers quite advanced in their craft. In the opening chapter of Great Expectations, Charles Dickens’ character Pip expresses each of the ideas below in one sentence.
- I never saw my father.
- I never saw my mother.
- I never saw any likeness of them.
- They lived before the days of photography.
- My first fancies of what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.
If Dickens had not combined these clauses into more artful sentences, we might not have read further. We might have thought our first-person narrator was too simple to tell a compelling story, but here’s how Pip really speaks:
As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.
The independent clause in this sentence is “my first fancies of what they were like were unreasonably derived from their tombstones.” Because Pip had never seen his parents, he imagines them from their tombstones. Dickens’ character also shares parenthetically (within the parentheses) that his parents lived before the invention of photography.
In this section, you’ll practice combining some clauses on your own. Look at the suggested structure (compound, complex, or compound-complex) and write a sentence in your notes. When you’re finished, check your understanding to compare your sentence to the author’s original sentence. Your goal in this exercise is not to replicate the writers’ sentences exactly, but to practice constructing meaningful sentences.
1. Complex
Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast.
He went out for a stroll on the beach.
Compare your sentence to the way Dickens combined the ideas.
Sample Response:
When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. (A Tale of Two Cities)
Source: Gulliver and the Liliputians, Donaldson
Brothers, Five Points, N.Y., Library of Congress
2. Complex
The last of these voyages did not prove very fortunate.
I grew weary of the sea.
I intended to stay at home with my wife and family.
Compare your sentence to the way Jonathon Swift combined the ideas.
Sample Response:
The last of these voyages not proving very fortunate, I grew weary of the sea and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. (Gulliver’s Travels)
3. Simple
The insect fluttered lightly through the chamber.
The insect settled on the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.
Compare your sentence to the way Nathaniel Hawthorne combined the ideas.
Sample Response:
The insect fluttered lightly through the chamber and settled on the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger. (“Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment”)
4. Simple
There were no books.
There were no pens.
There was no paper.
There was no ink.
There was no glass in the openings they believed to be windows.
Compare your sentence to the way Mark Twain combined the ideas.
Sample Response:
There were no books, pens, paper or ink, and no glass in the openings they believed to be windows. (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, “Merlin’s Tower”)
5. Compound-complex
Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father.
Mr. Bingley’s father had intended to purchase an estate.
Mr. Bingley’s father did not live to do it.
Compare your sentence to the way Jane Austen combined the ideas.
Sample Response:
Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate but did not live to do it. (Pride and Prejudice)
Source: Sherlock Holmes Statue,
Baker Street Station,
givingnot@rocketmail.com, Flickr
6. Compound
At three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street.
Holmes had not yet returned.
Compare your sentence to the way Sir Arthur Conan Doyle combined the ideas.
Sample Response:
At three o’clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had not yet returned. (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, “A Scandal in Bohemia”)
7. Complex
The inner door led to the passage.
The inner passage in turn led to the storm door.
The inner door was beside the stove.
Compare your sentence to the way John Steinbeck combined the ideas.
Sample Response:
The inner door, which led to the passage, which in turn led to the storm door, was beside the stove. (The Moon Is Down)