In a Wall Street Journal Wordcraft essay, Karen Thompson Walker, celebrated author of The Age of Miracles, observes that as a young writer, her sentences rarely did more than one thing at a time. It took her years to learn that they were meant to do more than “stand around and look pretty.” They must work hard:
–carry the plot, evoke images, and convey meaning through tone, meaning and voice. One more thing, “the best sentences surprise us.”
In her essay, she unpacks a few one-liners from great writers and explains that when sentences operate on multiple tracks, “the story begins to operate on multiple levels as well.”
I agree. Take a look at your sentences. Are they “bringing home the bacon, frying it up in the pan, and never ever, ever letting you forget you’re a man”? Now what does that sentence evoke?
Read the complete text of her essay, “Sentences Sentenced to Hard Labor” at:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444405804577561352868838934.html
Dogpatch Writers Collective 
Serendipity!
Thanks for connecting us with this article, Jilanne. The article does a lot in a small space, as our sentences need to, too.
Agreed! Thanks for taking a look. The article came to me in a somewhat roundabout way, the trigger being the latest issue of Poets & Writers magazine (July/August issue). Serendipity at work.