catapult magazine

Life sentence

by Jo Ann Walczak

1. A sentence is a group of words expressing a complete thought. Let your life sentence express one complete thought — one of grace and love.
2. Remember you are only one sentence among the trillions being spoken and written. You need to depend on the other sentences in your paragraph for unity and coherence. Groom and edit your sentence for its maximum impact. Know the thesis of the work to which you belong and seek to magnify it in your sentence.
3. Every sentence must contain a subject and a verb. The subject is the focus of your sentence. It answers the question, “Whom or what is the sentence about?” Do you know who or what your sentence is about? The best sentences will not use “I” as the subject.
4. The most interesting sentences will use action verbs like “help, serve, do, go, write, love.” Fill your sentence with action and avoid the passive voice.
5. Seek out nouns (“sister, son, cousin, neighbor, student, hairdresser, dentist, child, husband”) and surround them with your action.
6. Enjoy the commas. Use those pauses to stop, breathe, and relish the awe of God’s presence in your sentence.
7. Be grateful for those “being” verbs, remembering that although you write your sentence in action, your security rests in the great I AM who defines who you are.
8. Employ adjectives wisely. You will want to fill your sentence with colorful, glittery, expensive, extravagant, lovely, happy and exciting, but when all of the adjectives are stripped away, there remain only two things that matter: the subject and the verb.
9. The best sentences are written in the present tense. Better yet, use the present participle so that your present action is ongoing, and you continue in loving, believing, living, serving and doing.
10. Recognize the finite and brief nature of your sentence. Every sentence must end. Try to end your sentence with the assurance of a period or with the joy of an exclamation point, confident of a sentence well-stated.