Using these feeling
write a passage in 50 word amazed
Answers
Answer:
Are beautiful sentences full of nice turns of phrase?
Or are beautiful sentences full of wisdom?
Must beautiful sentences be full of risk and ambition, or can they be subtle and simple?
Must beautiful sentences make you feel something?
As I was combing through thousands of lovely sentences to make this list, through my library of books and internet lists and polling my writer friends, I decided that the best sentences accomplished a combination of those four criteria. Still, I was swamped with possibilities.
To limit the sheer number of beautiful sentences, I created some artificial boundaries:
I limited myself to modern authors, authors writing in the last 50 years or so, because there are many websites that list classic lines of literature and I don’t want to repeat them.
I’m also limiting the list to one submission per author.
I’ve also decided to opt for beautiful sentences under 100 words, because anything past that becomes its own beast, and it’s unfair for a 10 word sentence to have to compare to an epic monster sentence (If you want longer sentences, look at the longest sentences in English).
I’m picking virtually all of these from fiction, not nonfiction (with the exception of one — find it if you can), and I’m not picking first lines of books because those deserve their own list.
Let’s dig deeper into these four criteria:
Beautiful Phrasing
I find beautiful language necessary but not sufficient. Few sentences below use prosaic language, but if they do, they acheive beauty by the complexity of their construction, the way the sentence unspools. But if a sentence is only beautiful, and doesn’t stretch for anything more, I feel admiration but not love. After all, there are millions of gorgeous lines of prose, and we only have so much attention.
Wisdom
By wisdom I mean truth, insight, ideas. A sentence functioning as an aphorism. On many of the lists I found around the internet, such as the Buzzfeed list of 51 Beautiful Sentences and the Esquire list of 70 Sentences, this was their main criteria. The language didn’t have to be lovely or ingenious, but they wanted an idea to hoist its flag. For me, wisdom is a secondary consideration after beauty. I would pick a beautiful sentence over a wise sentence any day, because a wise sentence treats language as a mere vehicle while a beautiful sentence elevates language as the primary goal.
Ambition
Ambition isn’t just length, although it often appears that way. Ambitious sentences attempt new forms, rebel against syntax and grammar rules, and innovate with language. I love ambitious sentences, but it’s not essential for a perfect sentence. In this list I’ve tried to find a mix of both formally ambitious sentences and sentences that stay well within the rules but create beauty in orderly and masterful ways.
Sentiment
No one talks about emotion as a primary consideration for a good sentence. But I look for whether a good sentence elicits sadness or joy, awe or horror. I don’t just want to admire the lines and curves of the prose, I want a string to be plucked deep inside me. An emotionless sentence can look perfectly fine standing on its own, but line them up end to end and they’re the death of a book. One sentiment that is often overlooked in beautiful sentences is humor — a few of the sentences below are quite funny, but I wish I had more.
I’m trying to avoid one-trick ponies in my selections below: a sentence that does one good thing is wonderful, but it isn’t the best sentence that could be written.
I’m also not going for what I would call an “instructional sentence.” I’d compiled hundreds of great sentences in a file of mine, but when I examined, I realized most of them were designed to teach something to the reader. They contained some technique, some trick, some device that could be learned and replicated. The sentences below can be learned from, but that’s not their primary beauty. They are beautiful for the sake of beauty itself.
One last criteria for longer sentences: I want to see a narrative. By a narrative I mean some kind of turn from the beginning to the end. It doesn’t have to be a surprise, although it’s usually surprising. There needs to be a shift, an evolution, a gradation by the end. If the beautiful sentence ends and I’m still in the same place where I started, that’s a problem.
Lastly, if you like this list you might like some other lists at Bookfox:
16 Ways to Write a Sentence
Repeated Sentences: How to Harness the Power of Repetition
9 Ways to Write Short Sentences
But let’s stop talking about sentences and start looking at them.
100 Beautiful Sentences
1. “Undressing her was an act of recklessness, a kind of vandalism, like releasing a zoo full of animals, or blowing up a dam.”
– Michael Chabon