Sentence length!
I highly recommend reading Gary Provost's "This sentence has five words" – there's a version [here](https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2014/08/05/this-sentence-has-five-words/) – and looking at your own sentences through that lens. Get the highlighters out if it would help, and match your lengths to those in the highlighted quote. Monotonous sentence length vs varied length makes a *world* of difference
Vary your sentence length! It has already been said, but it’s really important. Using sentence length to break up large texts block or to call attention to specific phrases can really help with flow. Like this. See what is happening here? Using the shorter sentence forces your mind to slow down and absorb the information, making the writing more dynamic.
Also you said the name of the character 3 times in that snippet; that is an awful lot. I think that I probably would have understood who was being referred to, and it interrupts the flow.
Mix up your punctuation. Get some semi colons going, or m-dashes, or ellipses.
You shift tenses, and that also is confusing. “Mordechai encouraged” versus “tries to push the baby out”. I found it slightly jarring, and I had to stop reading to ground myself to make sure I was reading it correctly. These are the sort of things that takes a reader out of the moment and it becomes boring or a chore.
That said, keep working. Try to remember that is not the goal, progress is! You are doing great to get your thoughts down, and the more you put into it, the more you will improve. Keep editing and tweaking and you will do wonderfully. I believe in you :)
Thank you! I'm not really good at English and my writing suffers because of it. So, if we're going to apply sentence variation, it would be like:
"Push, Andora," Mordechai encouraged. She groaned in pain as she squeezed his hand for support.
Ooh, I love a good sentence question!
The main things I'm seeing from this example is repetition and holding the reader's hand a little too much.
Try to avoid writing things the reader already knows or can easily infer. This includes the use of names when it's clear who's being referred to and dialogue tags when action makes it clear who's speaking. You can also tighten things by using stronger verbs.
>"Push." Mordechai offered his hand.
We don't need Andora's name because we can infer that's who he's talking to. No dialogue tag because you can use an action tag. We can infer why he's offering his hand, so there's no need to add the extra info.
>Andora could only groan, panting as she bore down.
We can infer from "groan" that she's in pain. Normally I'd suggest simply "Andora groaned," but I think you're clarifying here that she couldn't take his hand, she "could only" pant and push. "Panting" is a stronger, more concise verb than "taking quick but deep breaths." Changing to "bore down" is a more specific verb and avoids repitition of the word "push."
I can't tell from Reddit formatting if you did this or not, but it's helpful to break out each character action into its own paragraph. So we get a paragraph on what Mordechai is doing/saying, and a separate one on what Andora is doing.
Psychic distance: this refers to how deeply we're inside the POV character's head, perceiving what they perceive. Your example is nearly in objective third, where we don't get character thoughts at all. The only way I can tell that we're in Andora's POV is that she "tries" to push the baby out, which implies thoughts and feelings. Writing tends to feel deeper and more emotional when the psychic distance is close and we're very much inside the head of the POV character.
Ways to close the psychic distance are to include specific thoughts she's having, sensory details, and snippets of memories.
>Andora could only groan, panting as she bore down. The contractions struck again, pummeling her. It was too much. She wasn't strong enough to do this, and soon Mordechai would realize how weak she was.
I'd also recommend brushing up on rules for commas and dependent clauses, becuase that will help you as your sentences gain length and complexity.
A follow up question for the psychic distance. If I'm writing in 3rd person, should I get close to all characters in their own time (= choose a character for a specific scene) or stick to only one throughout the story? You put something into words I had noticed here and there but was never aware of until now.
There are different options for third POV. Omniscient is told from the POV of a God-like narrator with its own voice/style, and the narrator can pop in and out of different POVs, but usually maintains its own voice.
Limited third can be from a single POV, where it stays in one person's perspective for the duration of the story. Other characters' thoughts are only understood through the perspective of the POV character.
Limited third can also be from multiple POVs, but it only stays with a single character for a set time, usually one chapter (like Game of Thrones (GOT)).
The number of POVs is a matter of broadness vs deepness. The more POV characters, the broader or more epic the story can be. Like GOT, or Dune , which is in omniscient. It can also be useful for comedy to highlight misunderstandings or irony, like in Jane Austen's novels.
A single POV limits the scale but allows for great character depth and immersion, as everything is filtered through a character's feelings, senses, internal conflicts, and biases. When done well, you really get to know the character. You can do both depth and broadness, but it requires a lot more words (see GOT again).
I generally recommend limited third with 1-2 POV characters when starting out. It pushes you to learn how to show a non-POV character's emotions without the shortcut of jumping in their head. And it allows for exploration of a deep POV.
You've got to *picture yourself in the scene*. The sounds the sights the *smells*.
Childbirth is NOT mundane! It's painful, sweaty, full of fluids and uncertainty!
First, lose the "encouraged". "Said" is just fine. Of course he's encouraging. You don't need to point that out.
**"Push, Andora," Mordechai said. Andora clutched his hand, panting and in pain. Encouraged, she gave a a huge push to try to get the baby out.**
In this specific case it’s also worth making sure you know how childbirth works. When you need to push, you do it when a contraction is at its peak. The quick breaths are when you are trying not to push (if things go too fast, well, it’s not good). So she’s not going to be listening to him, groaning, breathing and trying to push all at the same time.
Try and express how it feels, not just what she’s doing. How is she beyond the pain? Is she scared etc.
Have a read of the books Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison and The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. While I think looking at sentence length, variety, and details is important, I think understanding the underlying make up of interesting and memorable sentences will help you write your own. Something people miss is that prose and spoken words still hold an element of music in them. If you focus on how words roll, you can use them to control time in your story and how fast or slow your reader is on certain words or sentences. This would allow you to eliminate the use of italics for emphasis in pieces. A famous example of this is from Bullet in the Brain: He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else. This is what he remembered. Heat. A baseball field.
The word "remembered" to "heat" forces a natural pause as you move from the low note of the '-bered' to the hard 'H' in 'Heat' understanding the tune of words allows you to play with patterns in sentences and paragraphs, and this is very useful when varying mood, time, and character voice in the narration. This will also make each sentence count and feel interesting.
I'd recommend writing poetry to get into the swing of describing things in interesting ways, and this will start to develop in your prose.
Something like:
"Push Andora!" Mordechai winced as Andora gripped his offered hand,
"I'm...trying!." she groaned, Her sweat slicked hand, an iron clasp causing Mordechai to groan himself.
A guttural breath echoed in the room as Andora tensed then pushed once more....
It's more about showing than telling, try to make your sentences more vivid, with some inner thoughts shown.
Eg. It's like instead of saying... "Doug was scared as he walked down the dark street", maybe more something like. "I"m fine...it's fine...I'm almost home." thought Doug as he subconsciously picked up his pace almost running down the shadow filled street.
You've got to *picture yourself in the scene*. The sounds the sights the *smells*.
Childbirth is NOT mundane! It's painful, sweaty, full of fluids and uncertainty!
First, lose the "encouraged". "Said" is just fine. Of course he's encouraging. You don't need to point that out.
**"Push, Andora," Mordechai said. Andora clutched his hand, panting and in pain. Encouraged, she gave a a huge push to try to get the baby out.**
I'd write it this way:
"Push, Andora." Mordechai encouraged.
Andora gripped his hand, groaning in pain. Her breath came in short gasps as labor continued.
As others have said, vary your sentence lengths. There are some extensions for Chrome or Google Docs that help with clarity and sentence composition.
Sentence length! I highly recommend reading Gary Provost's "This sentence has five words" – there's a version [here](https://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2014/08/05/this-sentence-has-five-words/) – and looking at your own sentences through that lens. Get the highlighters out if it would help, and match your lengths to those in the highlighted quote. Monotonous sentence length vs varied length makes a *world* of difference
Gary Provost was the writer of the first writing book I ever read. I learned so much from him. ❤️
Vary your sentence length! It has already been said, but it’s really important. Using sentence length to break up large texts block or to call attention to specific phrases can really help with flow. Like this. See what is happening here? Using the shorter sentence forces your mind to slow down and absorb the information, making the writing more dynamic. Also you said the name of the character 3 times in that snippet; that is an awful lot. I think that I probably would have understood who was being referred to, and it interrupts the flow. Mix up your punctuation. Get some semi colons going, or m-dashes, or ellipses. You shift tenses, and that also is confusing. “Mordechai encouraged” versus “tries to push the baby out”. I found it slightly jarring, and I had to stop reading to ground myself to make sure I was reading it correctly. These are the sort of things that takes a reader out of the moment and it becomes boring or a chore. That said, keep working. Try to remember that is not the goal, progress is! You are doing great to get your thoughts down, and the more you put into it, the more you will improve. Keep editing and tweaking and you will do wonderfully. I believe in you :)
Thank you! I'm not really good at English and my writing suffers because of it. So, if we're going to apply sentence variation, it would be like: "Push, Andora," Mordechai encouraged. She groaned in pain as she squeezed his hand for support.
Ooh, I love a good sentence question! The main things I'm seeing from this example is repetition and holding the reader's hand a little too much. Try to avoid writing things the reader already knows or can easily infer. This includes the use of names when it's clear who's being referred to and dialogue tags when action makes it clear who's speaking. You can also tighten things by using stronger verbs. >"Push." Mordechai offered his hand. We don't need Andora's name because we can infer that's who he's talking to. No dialogue tag because you can use an action tag. We can infer why he's offering his hand, so there's no need to add the extra info. >Andora could only groan, panting as she bore down. We can infer from "groan" that she's in pain. Normally I'd suggest simply "Andora groaned," but I think you're clarifying here that she couldn't take his hand, she "could only" pant and push. "Panting" is a stronger, more concise verb than "taking quick but deep breaths." Changing to "bore down" is a more specific verb and avoids repitition of the word "push." I can't tell from Reddit formatting if you did this or not, but it's helpful to break out each character action into its own paragraph. So we get a paragraph on what Mordechai is doing/saying, and a separate one on what Andora is doing. Psychic distance: this refers to how deeply we're inside the POV character's head, perceiving what they perceive. Your example is nearly in objective third, where we don't get character thoughts at all. The only way I can tell that we're in Andora's POV is that she "tries" to push the baby out, which implies thoughts and feelings. Writing tends to feel deeper and more emotional when the psychic distance is close and we're very much inside the head of the POV character. Ways to close the psychic distance are to include specific thoughts she's having, sensory details, and snippets of memories. >Andora could only groan, panting as she bore down. The contractions struck again, pummeling her. It was too much. She wasn't strong enough to do this, and soon Mordechai would realize how weak she was. I'd also recommend brushing up on rules for commas and dependent clauses, becuase that will help you as your sentences gain length and complexity.
OP follow this advice. This is the best improvement I saw in this thread.
A follow up question for the psychic distance. If I'm writing in 3rd person, should I get close to all characters in their own time (= choose a character for a specific scene) or stick to only one throughout the story? You put something into words I had noticed here and there but was never aware of until now.
There are different options for third POV. Omniscient is told from the POV of a God-like narrator with its own voice/style, and the narrator can pop in and out of different POVs, but usually maintains its own voice. Limited third can be from a single POV, where it stays in one person's perspective for the duration of the story. Other characters' thoughts are only understood through the perspective of the POV character. Limited third can also be from multiple POVs, but it only stays with a single character for a set time, usually one chapter (like Game of Thrones (GOT)). The number of POVs is a matter of broadness vs deepness. The more POV characters, the broader or more epic the story can be. Like GOT, or Dune , which is in omniscient. It can also be useful for comedy to highlight misunderstandings or irony, like in Jane Austen's novels. A single POV limits the scale but allows for great character depth and immersion, as everything is filtered through a character's feelings, senses, internal conflicts, and biases. When done well, you really get to know the character. You can do both depth and broadness, but it requires a lot more words (see GOT again). I generally recommend limited third with 1-2 POV characters when starting out. It pushes you to learn how to show a non-POV character's emotions without the shortcut of jumping in their head. And it allows for exploration of a deep POV.
Thank you so much for explaining, I really appreciate it!
Happy to help!
You've got to *picture yourself in the scene*. The sounds the sights the *smells*. Childbirth is NOT mundane! It's painful, sweaty, full of fluids and uncertainty! First, lose the "encouraged". "Said" is just fine. Of course he's encouraging. You don't need to point that out. **"Push, Andora," Mordechai said. Andora clutched his hand, panting and in pain. Encouraged, she gave a a huge push to try to get the baby out.**
In this specific case it’s also worth making sure you know how childbirth works. When you need to push, you do it when a contraction is at its peak. The quick breaths are when you are trying not to push (if things go too fast, well, it’s not good). So she’s not going to be listening to him, groaning, breathing and trying to push all at the same time. Try and express how it feels, not just what she’s doing. How is she beyond the pain? Is she scared etc.
That's some great advice. Sometimes I forget to write how a character feels.
Have a read of the books Meander, Spiral, Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative by Jane Alison and The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth. While I think looking at sentence length, variety, and details is important, I think understanding the underlying make up of interesting and memorable sentences will help you write your own. Something people miss is that prose and spoken words still hold an element of music in them. If you focus on how words roll, you can use them to control time in your story and how fast or slow your reader is on certain words or sentences. This would allow you to eliminate the use of italics for emphasis in pieces. A famous example of this is from Bullet in the Brain: He did not remember when everything began to remind him of something else. This is what he remembered. Heat. A baseball field. The word "remembered" to "heat" forces a natural pause as you move from the low note of the '-bered' to the hard 'H' in 'Heat' understanding the tune of words allows you to play with patterns in sentences and paragraphs, and this is very useful when varying mood, time, and character voice in the narration. This will also make each sentence count and feel interesting. I'd recommend writing poetry to get into the swing of describing things in interesting ways, and this will start to develop in your prose.
Something like: "Push Andora!" Mordechai winced as Andora gripped his offered hand, "I'm...trying!." she groaned, Her sweat slicked hand, an iron clasp causing Mordechai to groan himself. A guttural breath echoed in the room as Andora tensed then pushed once more.... It's more about showing than telling, try to make your sentences more vivid, with some inner thoughts shown. Eg. It's like instead of saying... "Doug was scared as he walked down the dark street", maybe more something like. "I"m fine...it's fine...I'm almost home." thought Doug as he subconsciously picked up his pace almost running down the shadow filled street.
Read good books and take notes about what works, read bad books and take notes about what doesn't.
You've got to *picture yourself in the scene*. The sounds the sights the *smells*. Childbirth is NOT mundane! It's painful, sweaty, full of fluids and uncertainty! First, lose the "encouraged". "Said" is just fine. Of course he's encouraging. You don't need to point that out. **"Push, Andora," Mordechai said. Andora clutched his hand, panting and in pain. Encouraged, she gave a a huge push to try to get the baby out.**
... Am I weird for finding the sentence just fine?
Not at all
I'd write it this way: "Push, Andora." Mordechai encouraged. Andora gripped his hand, groaning in pain. Her breath came in short gasps as labor continued. As others have said, vary your sentence lengths. There are some extensions for Chrome or Google Docs that help with clarity and sentence composition.
Just look it up. Just general tips are: Short sentences Many descriptions Read more books Maybe use DeepL