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Several Short Sentences About Writing
Most of what you think you know about writing is useless. It’s the harmful debris of your education—a mixture of half-truths, myths, and false assumptions that prevents you from writing well. Drawing on years of experience as a writer and teacher of writing, Verlyn Klinkenborg offers an approach to writing that will change the way you work and think. There is no gospel, no orthodoxy, no dogma in this book. What you’ll find here isn’t the way to write. Instead, you’ll find a way to clear your mind of illusions about writing and discover how you write. Several Short Sentences About Writing is a book of first steps and experiments. They will revolutionize the way you think and perceive, and they will change forever the sense of your own authority as a writer. This is a book full of learning, but it’s also a book full of unlearning—a way to recover the vivid, rhythmic, poetic sense of language you once possessed. An indispensable and unique book that will give you a clear understanding of how to think about what you do when you write and how to improve the quality of your writing.
226 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
909 people are currently reading
9459 people want to read
About the author
Verlyn Klinkenborg
44 books114 followersVerlyn Klinkenborg is a member of the editorial board of The New York Times. His previous books include Making Hay, The Last Fine Time, and The Rural Life. He lives in upstate New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 629 reviews
June 14, 2013
This book is nearly impossible to rate.
It's good.
It's really good.
But it reads like theoretical slam poetry
On the topic of writing.
An essay that could be in verse,
But isn't in verse.
And that might be off-putting to some readers.
Every sentence in this book is valuable.
I have visions of myself sitting and writing,
Noticing, as Klinkenborg would put it,
And consulting this book.
The guy knows his stuff
And that makes him a little pompous in his delivery.
Reviewers have complained that they feel condescended to while reading.
Klinkenborg is pretty condescending,
But he welcomes discussion
And disagreement.
Read the preface, guys.
It's all there.
I loved this book.
I loved reading the simple sample passages
And discovering why the good ones were good
And the bad ones were bad.
Pick up a copy
And forget what you think you know,
If only while you have the book in your hands.
You will become a better reader
And, probably, a better writer.
It's good.
It's really good.
But it reads like theoretical slam poetry
On the topic of writing.
An essay that could be in verse,
But isn't in verse.
And that might be off-putting to some readers.
Every sentence in this book is valuable.
I have visions of myself sitting and writing,
Noticing, as Klinkenborg would put it,
And consulting this book.
The guy knows his stuff
And that makes him a little pompous in his delivery.
Reviewers have complained that they feel condescended to while reading.
Klinkenborg is pretty condescending,
But he welcomes discussion
And disagreement.
Read the preface, guys.
It's all there.
I loved this book.
I loved reading the simple sample passages
And discovering why the good ones were good
And the bad ones were bad.
Pick up a copy
And forget what you think you know,
If only while you have the book in your hands.
You will become a better reader
And, probably, a better writer.
May 19, 2022
As someone who reads books on writing for pleasure, this offered something new. The author is funny and arrogant, the way you’d expect a Yale professor could be. He targets the world of US academics as the butt of his jokes, highlighting how it makes us bad writers. This is helpful and clear. He provides good exercises and shows how mindfulness fuels creativity. He is honest, direct and brief. What I liked most was how he asks us to trust in our own choices, and how these choices create an author’s unique style, the more specific they’re made. Keep in mind, I’m writing this review spontaneously, from my phone. I’m aware of my conflicting verb tenses, and other issues. He’d hate this review.
January 19, 2017
I'd recommend this to newer writers since I think it's aimed at them. The tone rankled me, so did the direct address, second-person POV (also occasional first-person plural), particularly when it addressed someone I was not -- that is, someone lacking an apparently excellent education when it comes to writing (he condescends too often to "what you were taught about writing"). He also too often for me presents his assertions as objective truth. The format emphasizes sentence length and rhythm. It's a bit pretentious and distracting but makes things easy to read. Midway through I more often agreed with arguments, especially about trusting the reader, not planning, and revision. But in general I found it too dry to love, too artistically constrictive, too much the wisdom of a well-established journalist maybe too sure of and admiring of his authority? The professional/canonical examples (McPhee, Didion, Cheever, Auden, Orwell, Oates) all share, to a degree, a staid and respectable style. The student examples remind me of the things teacher friends post on facebook, plus the edits are all the sort you'd make intuitively if you've been writing/editing a while. Overall, a good refresher about applying requisite pressure upon the prose. Again, recommended reading for newer writers, if not always so attractive in tone, POV, or attitude. (This is no Making Shapely Fiction.) Also the sort of thing that can get in your head and get in the way of writing well if you're too concerned with sentences at first instead of getting at the story. I've always felt that too much pressure on the sentences upon composition (ye olde thing about how writing is easy, you just sit till beads of blood appear on your forehead) gets in the way of deeply imagining. For some it's better to get out of the way. Also, for what it's worth, this review is overconscious of its language. It feels to me hampered by thinking about clear, precise, short sentences thanks to this book. Anyway, worth a look if you see this somewhere. Something helpful or something to argue with, depending who you are. For me, it was both. But of course I love long sentences and will probably go back later and revise this till it's one flowing yet tangled run-on -- economy be damned!
September 28, 2025
I see people love this book
Though I did not,
But You might.
Good writing should be significant and delightful in every sentence. Or as others have said previously and more to the point: Every sentence does not need to be brilliant, but every sentence needs to be good.
Klinkenborg addresses his "several short sentences" to a very specific audience, one exactly like himself: with the same education, writing experience, and arrogance that he brings to the table. All those basic principles and structures and rules we have been taught about writing? Completely wrong and so far beneath him. You don't need them either. You just need to do what Klinkenborg tells you to do in this book.
I do not underestimate the reader's intelligence with, as one example, overly scripted transitions, but I wonder what I am supposed to feel about a writer condescending to me by breaking lengthy sentences into capped lines like old-fashioned poetry?
What works so very well for him in his published writing... might not work so well for every writer.
There are certainly "several short sentences" here, but there are also well over a thousand that are quite long indeed.
All thoughts are not best expressed in short sentences. By mid-page in his diatribe is a 6-line 28-word sentence insisting on short sentences. Perhaps he meant to be ironic? But no, he goes right on doing it throughout. He writes sentences here of 40 words, which is not my idea of "short." The structure of sentences, long and short, serves the rhythm and meaning of the author. And how he uses his own rules works for him—hoorah!
And as to meaning... and writing not leading to some sort of meaning... call me a fool, because I believe meaning need not be hidden to be necessary. Meaning may be achieved in the understanding of the reader. A great writer serves that goal, not by stating "meaning" at the end, but by leading the reader to it... stated or unstated, meaning is the point. Music is desirable. Glorious sentences are appreciated. But all writing with any purpose has meaning, even if that meaning is music or glory or something quite mundane. A shopping list.
I can't help wondering if he wrote some of this as an elaborate joke? If so, I am not ashamed to say that it took me quite a while to begin laughing. [Though I did laugh after a while. Hubris or humor? I really could not tell.]
If you read only one book about sentences... not this one. Try How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish and certainly look at Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin.
[Oh, and the ellipses... that is me being particularly peevish.]
Though I did not,
But You might.
Good writing should be significant and delightful in every sentence. Or as others have said previously and more to the point: Every sentence does not need to be brilliant, but every sentence needs to be good.
Klinkenborg addresses his "several short sentences" to a very specific audience, one exactly like himself: with the same education, writing experience, and arrogance that he brings to the table. All those basic principles and structures and rules we have been taught about writing? Completely wrong and so far beneath him. You don't need them either. You just need to do what Klinkenborg tells you to do in this book.
I do not underestimate the reader's intelligence with, as one example, overly scripted transitions, but I wonder what I am supposed to feel about a writer condescending to me by breaking lengthy sentences into capped lines like old-fashioned poetry?
I do not underestimate the reader's intelligence...because that is what he's done on many pages.
With, as one example, overly scripted transitions,
But I wonder what I am supposed to feel
About a writer condescending to me
By breaking lengthy sentences into capped lines
Like old-fashioned poetry?
What works so very well for him in his published writing... might not work so well for every writer.
There are certainly "several short sentences" here, but there are also well over a thousand that are quite long indeed.
All thoughts are not best expressed in short sentences. By mid-page in his diatribe is a 6-line 28-word sentence insisting on short sentences. Perhaps he meant to be ironic? But no, he goes right on doing it throughout. He writes sentences here of 40 words, which is not my idea of "short." The structure of sentences, long and short, serves the rhythm and meaning of the author. And how he uses his own rules works for him—hoorah!
And as to meaning... and writing not leading to some sort of meaning... call me a fool, because I believe meaning need not be hidden to be necessary. Meaning may be achieved in the understanding of the reader. A great writer serves that goal, not by stating "meaning" at the end, but by leading the reader to it... stated or unstated, meaning is the point. Music is desirable. Glorious sentences are appreciated. But all writing with any purpose has meaning, even if that meaning is music or glory or something quite mundane. A shopping list.
I can't help wondering if he wrote some of this as an elaborate joke? If so, I am not ashamed to say that it took me quite a while to begin laughing. [Though I did laugh after a while. Hubris or humor? I really could not tell.]
If you read only one book about sentences... not this one. Try How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish and certainly look at Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin.
[Oh, and the ellipses... that is me being particularly peevish.]
September 20, 2013
I'm loving this book, here is my favorite qoute, from page 12 " The longer the sentence, the less it's able to imply, and writing by implication should be one of your goals. Implication is almost nonexistent in the prose that surrounds you, the prose of law, science, business, journalism, and most academic fields. It was nonexistent in the way you were taught to write, that means you don't know how to use one of a writer's most important tools: the ability to suggest more than the words seem to allow, the ability to speak to the reader in silence."
March 21, 2019
Hugely useful book.
First of all, his name is Verlyn Klinkenborg. While you read it, you get to say things like "What in Verlyn Klinkenborg's name is going on here?!"
Secondly, he likes sentences. He never says he likes them. He instead asserts some authoritative all-knowledge about sentences. Like God wants good sentences, more than good behavior. And sure, what does Verlyn Klinkenborg know? But I like sentences too. I read a bad sentence and think: "you increase the unhappiness in the world."
This book is a tonic for those of us trained by academia to write bad sentences -- to stretch each sentence until it includes everything, to cram it with the jargon of 'logic,' to hook on a transition at the beginning and one on the end. Klinkenborg -- Verlyn Klinkenborg, that is, not that other Klinkenborg -- also snubs the over-clever wordsmithing of hook-yer-audience copy writers.
One needling discomfort: Klinkenborg (Verlyn) teaches how to write with confidence, authority, and trust in yourself and your reader. And he has these skills himself. His authoritativeness doesn't bother me -- I like to surrender myself to a strong writer. But . . . but writing . . . how can I put this? Everyone who writes about writing has to contradict themselves at least once a page. Because writing is strange and slippery and unbounded by rules. Verlyn Klinkenborg is no exception. But when he contradicts himself, he gets huffy. He says well yes it's this and it's also that and writing is contradictory so deal with it. This is only alarming because he's been so damn confident all along. If he confessed more to confusion, wonder, distress, ignorance, maybe he could let the contradiction rest there with its own weight and wisdom.
But if I'm so smart, why aren't I an editor for the New York Times?
First of all, his name is Verlyn Klinkenborg. While you read it, you get to say things like "What in Verlyn Klinkenborg's name is going on here?!"
Secondly, he likes sentences. He never says he likes them. He instead asserts some authoritative all-knowledge about sentences. Like God wants good sentences, more than good behavior. And sure, what does Verlyn Klinkenborg know? But I like sentences too. I read a bad sentence and think: "you increase the unhappiness in the world."
This book is a tonic for those of us trained by academia to write bad sentences -- to stretch each sentence until it includes everything, to cram it with the jargon of 'logic,' to hook on a transition at the beginning and one on the end. Klinkenborg -- Verlyn Klinkenborg, that is, not that other Klinkenborg -- also snubs the over-clever wordsmithing of hook-yer-audience copy writers.
One needling discomfort: Klinkenborg (Verlyn) teaches how to write with confidence, authority, and trust in yourself and your reader. And he has these skills himself. His authoritativeness doesn't bother me -- I like to surrender myself to a strong writer. But . . . but writing . . . how can I put this? Everyone who writes about writing has to contradict themselves at least once a page. Because writing is strange and slippery and unbounded by rules. Verlyn Klinkenborg is no exception. But when he contradicts himself, he gets huffy. He says well yes it's this and it's also that and writing is contradictory so deal with it. This is only alarming because he's been so damn confident all along. If he confessed more to confusion, wonder, distress, ignorance, maybe he could let the contradiction rest there with its own weight and wisdom.
But if I'm so smart, why aren't I an editor for the New York Times?
September 18, 2020
تقريبًا أفضل كتاب قرأته عن الكتابة.
Read
May 29, 2024I filed this under "teaching," though I suppose it works as well for "learning," that is, for someone who wants to hear advice about how to write.
For me, a lot of stuff I've heard before, and somewhat repetitive, too, but I will give Klinkenborg credit for complaining about some of the standard fare we're served up in school: Introductory sentences, transition words left and right, conclusions that restate the already well-said.
V.K. thinks a lot of this disrespects the reader, who can be expected to get from sentence to sentence without so much hand-holding. In fact, the author's all about sentences. To make his point, this whole book forgoes paragraphs and is written as sentences stacked atop each other like Sunday morning flapjacks.
At the end, some representative excerpts from great writers of sentences with author's commentary, followed by troublesome sentences you might offer to students to see if they can diagnose a problem (if not, Verlyn Klinkenborg is there to provide an answer).
For me, a lot of stuff I've heard before, and somewhat repetitive, too, but I will give Klinkenborg credit for complaining about some of the standard fare we're served up in school: Introductory sentences, transition words left and right, conclusions that restate the already well-said.
V.K. thinks a lot of this disrespects the reader, who can be expected to get from sentence to sentence without so much hand-holding. In fact, the author's all about sentences. To make his point, this whole book forgoes paragraphs and is written as sentences stacked atop each other like Sunday morning flapjacks.
At the end, some representative excerpts from great writers of sentences with author's commentary, followed by troublesome sentences you might offer to students to see if they can diagnose a problem (if not, Verlyn Klinkenborg is there to provide an answer).
January 16, 2018
What a strange, funny, true, crazy, insightful book. Klinkenborg walks that fine line between pretension and crystal-clear truth. For the most part, the book is about writing better sentences, and in that respect, it’s deeply insightful and thought-provoking. But even better is what Klinkenborg’s sentences are actually saying about busting writing stereotypes. There were a few moments where the book’s relentless stylizing grew tedious, but mostly, this was a very fast, entertaining, and worthwhile read.
October 10, 2012
While some ideas put forth in this book are valid and useful, I was put off by two things. First, the examples the author chooses of bad sentences were just too bad and uncomfortable to read through to the end. Second, I can't help thinking the emphasis on brevity and clarity will prove stifling in the end, turning all writing into technical writing. I'm reminded of my college poetry class where one student on hearing a beautiful sonnet by Shakespeare complained that Billy could have said the same thing in one short sentence.
February 28, 2013
Hands down, this is the most inspiring, honest, and realistic book about writing that I have ever read. It is best to read this slowly and savor each kernel of advice. I have used Klinkenborg's advice in classrooms to inspired new writers away from their formal, stuffy training and toward their most authentic voices. His ideas are clearly stated and feel immediately true upon reading them, although no one has quite said them in this way before. I can't recommend this book enough.
November 17, 2013
I found this book annoying. It is written in the second person, with each sentence set apart from the next on the page, as though a Zen master was addressing a somewhat slow disciple and wanted to make each statement very, very clear. There's some good advice, some bad, and a lot of repetition.
Read
May 29, 2022I can't really decide how to rate this.
Been on sort of a bad streak with the the writing books lately. There have been some good little nuggets in them, just buried in a bag of wtf. This continued the trend.
This is focused on the sentence as an individual unit. It's even formatted in such a way as to try and force you to read it that way.
The author seems fixed on overturning all the writing "advice" and "rules" you received in school, on the apparent assumption that you actually took all of them as "correct" and not just the opinions of some pompous gasbag which you were being forced to comply with temporarily for the purposes of a grade.
Unfortunately he's apparently not just anti-bad-undergraduate-essay-style-structure he seems to be completely anti-structure and this book definitely lacks any. The bulk of it is one long rambly mass of sentences with not so much as a single chapter break.
It's kind of funny to see a professor basically ranting against everything our education system has been teaching as far as writing goes. However it's still very much in the academic box, both in coming off very much as "my taste is the one objectively good style" and in that his advice on how to go about writing is suited only to a very privileged subset of people. If you are actually writing with some purpose other than masturbatory self-indulgence you're going to find the how-to portions hilariously impractical.
Perhaps I'm misrepresenting and he meant for his how-to advice to be strictly as exercises and you're permitted to write in a sane fashion for actual use, but if he said as much it must have been in one of the blocks where my eyes were glazed over.
That would have been due to the dreamlike quality of the writing here. Not in the sense of ethereal beauty, rather the sense of a creepy uncle whispering in your ear as you fall asleep.
While the main chunk of the book goes on far far too long and should have been condensed down to a fraction of it's length there is some good stuff.
I liked the emphasis on learning to see what your sentences actually say and not just what you intended to say.
I found his take on "voice" very agreeable, it generally being something that's just going to emerge if you get out of its way. I've always thought of it like accent, in that yours is invisible to you. I've been rolling my eyes at baby writers angsting about voice, or artists about "finding their style" so long I can't remember a time before.
I also appreciated the "good writing" samples he had after the main text. These are from people like Rebecca West, W.H. Auden, and John McPhee. Very much a particular style, but definitely good. After that he has a bunch of sample "bad" sentences (from students?) which he points out the flaws in. This is a mix of quite helpful, willfully obtuse (in the sense of pronoun antecedents which no reasonable person would misconstrue), and dubiously subjective. I think his obsession with taking each sentence in isolation leads him to reject some extremely good ones simply because they're dependent on context to parse.
Been on sort of a bad streak with the the writing books lately. There have been some good little nuggets in them, just buried in a bag of wtf. This continued the trend.
This is focused on the sentence as an individual unit. It's even formatted in such a way as to try and force you to read it that way.
The author seems fixed on overturning all the writing "advice" and "rules" you received in school, on the apparent assumption that you actually took all of them as "correct" and not just the opinions of some pompous gasbag which you were being forced to comply with temporarily for the purposes of a grade.
Unfortunately he's apparently not just anti-bad-undergraduate-essay-style-structure he seems to be completely anti-structure and this book definitely lacks any. The bulk of it is one long rambly mass of sentences with not so much as a single chapter break.
It's kind of funny to see a professor basically ranting against everything our education system has been teaching as far as writing goes. However it's still very much in the academic box, both in coming off very much as "my taste is the one objectively good style" and in that his advice on how to go about writing is suited only to a very privileged subset of people. If you are actually writing with some purpose other than masturbatory self-indulgence you're going to find the how-to portions hilariously impractical.
Perhaps I'm misrepresenting and he meant for his how-to advice to be strictly as exercises and you're permitted to write in a sane fashion for actual use, but if he said as much it must have been in one of the blocks where my eyes were glazed over.
That would have been due to the dreamlike quality of the writing here. Not in the sense of ethereal beauty, rather the sense of a creepy uncle whispering in your ear as you fall asleep.
While the main chunk of the book goes on far far too long and should have been condensed down to a fraction of it's length there is some good stuff.
I liked the emphasis on learning to see what your sentences actually say and not just what you intended to say.
I found his take on "voice" very agreeable, it generally being something that's just going to emerge if you get out of its way. I've always thought of it like accent, in that yours is invisible to you. I've been rolling my eyes at baby writers angsting about voice, or artists about "finding their style" so long I can't remember a time before.
I also appreciated the "good writing" samples he had after the main text. These are from people like Rebecca West, W.H. Auden, and John McPhee. Very much a particular style, but definitely good. After that he has a bunch of sample "bad" sentences (from students?) which he points out the flaws in. This is a mix of quite helpful, willfully obtuse (in the sense of pronoun antecedents which no reasonable person would misconstrue), and dubiously subjective. I think his obsession with taking each sentence in isolation leads him to reject some extremely good ones simply because they're dependent on context to parse.
October 17, 2021
DNF somewhere in the middle.
I tried to take what worked for me and leave the rest, but the rest was really off-putting. I have serious reservations about the "advice" being given here, and especially the way it's presented. I hated the form and structure. There was no good reason for it; it jarred and agitated me. When he said we should not work in revision, but rather work before we write, I was done. I get what he was trying to say, but it's just not practical nor sustainable, and it's terribly unrealistic. I already hear so many writers talk about feeling lousy because their first draft isn't perfect. These writers often give up because of this anxiety and fear. This book cements that thinking, and I find it harmful. The best way to overcome that fear is to write bad drafts, and then write better in revision. It's what we all do, and anyone saying something else isn't serious. No thanks.
I tried to take what worked for me and leave the rest, but the rest was really off-putting. I have serious reservations about the "advice" being given here, and especially the way it's presented. I hated the form and structure. There was no good reason for it; it jarred and agitated me. When he said we should not work in revision, but rather work before we write, I was done. I get what he was trying to say, but it's just not practical nor sustainable, and it's terribly unrealistic. I already hear so many writers talk about feeling lousy because their first draft isn't perfect. These writers often give up because of this anxiety and fear. This book cements that thinking, and I find it harmful. The best way to overcome that fear is to write bad drafts, and then write better in revision. It's what we all do, and anyone saying something else isn't serious. No thanks.
September 19, 2012
“Here, in short is what I want to tell you.
"Know what each sentence says,
What it doesn’t say,
And what it implies.
Of these, the hardest is knowing what each sentence
actually says.”
“Your job as a writer is making sentences.
Your other jobs includes fixing sentences, killing sentences,
and arranging sentences . . .”
The title of Kinkenborg’s book encompasses the subject. It is an exploration of the sentence and it’s importance to writers. He offers advice, wisdom and insight gained over time in simple, organic prose that is easy to read and even easier to understand.
Valuable information and a useful tool for writers of any age and genre.
“What we’re working on precedes genre.
For our purposes, genre is meaningless.
It’s a method of shelving books and awarding prizes.”
"Know what each sentence says,
What it doesn’t say,
And what it implies.
Of these, the hardest is knowing what each sentence
actually says.”
“Your job as a writer is making sentences.
Your other jobs includes fixing sentences, killing sentences,
and arranging sentences . . .”
The title of Kinkenborg’s book encompasses the subject. It is an exploration of the sentence and it’s importance to writers. He offers advice, wisdom and insight gained over time in simple, organic prose that is easy to read and even easier to understand.
Valuable information and a useful tool for writers of any age and genre.
“What we’re working on precedes genre.
For our purposes, genre is meaningless.
It’s a method of shelving books and awarding prizes.”
December 1, 2025
I was very frustrated in the beginning with the tone and it ends very strangely (with writing examples that go on way too long and then not conclusion or anything, the book just stops) - hence the 4 stars - but the middle sections might have changed my writing life.
August 19, 2012
How to foster a certain quality of mind, the writing mind, which notices, lies at the heart of Several Short Sentences About Writing. As the quotes below show, Klinkenborg's writing advice is presented like poetry. Technically it IS poetry, as he’s controlling the length of his lines. This compulsively readable declarative poem runs for149 of the book’s 204 pages, the balance being examples of prose, good and bad, and concise commentary. Here are some of his gnomic stanzas that struck me as interesting:
"If you notice something, it’s because it’s important.
But what you notice depends on what you allow yourself to notice,
And that depends on what you feel authorized, permitted to notice
In a world where we’re trained to disregard our perceptions. . . .
"Is it possible to practice noticing?
I think so.
But I also think it requires a suspension of yearning
And a pause in the desire to be pouring something out of yourself.
Noticing is about letting yourself out into the world,
Rather than siphoning the world into you
In order to transmute it into words."
. . .
"The longer the sentence, the less it’s able to imply,
And writing by implication should be one of your goals.
Implication is almost nonexistent in the prose that surrounds you . . .
"Try making prose with a poetic seriousness about its tools—
Rhythm, twists of language, the capacity to show the reader
What lies beyond expression,
But with the gaits of prose and a plainness in reserve
That poetry rarely possesses, an exalted plainness."
It’s up to you to decide for yourself in the crucible of your practice whether Klinkenborg’s opinions are true. He calls them conclusions, not assumptions. But he urges wariness about all dogma, even his. Contrary to so many process-based writing theorists, including the influential Peter Elbow, he says the creative and critical functions are not separate. They occur simultaneously.
This is a classic! Very inspiring.
"If you notice something, it’s because it’s important.
But what you notice depends on what you allow yourself to notice,
And that depends on what you feel authorized, permitted to notice
In a world where we’re trained to disregard our perceptions. . . .
"Is it possible to practice noticing?
I think so.
But I also think it requires a suspension of yearning
And a pause in the desire to be pouring something out of yourself.
Noticing is about letting yourself out into the world,
Rather than siphoning the world into you
In order to transmute it into words."
. . .
"The longer the sentence, the less it’s able to imply,
And writing by implication should be one of your goals.
Implication is almost nonexistent in the prose that surrounds you . . .
"Try making prose with a poetic seriousness about its tools—
Rhythm, twists of language, the capacity to show the reader
What lies beyond expression,
But with the gaits of prose and a plainness in reserve
That poetry rarely possesses, an exalted plainness."
It’s up to you to decide for yourself in the crucible of your practice whether Klinkenborg’s opinions are true. He calls them conclusions, not assumptions. But he urges wariness about all dogma, even his. Contrary to so many process-based writing theorists, including the influential Peter Elbow, he says the creative and critical functions are not separate. They occur simultaneously.
This is a classic! Very inspiring.
November 10, 2015
After reading Verlyn Klinkenborg's Several Short Sentences About Writing, I realized I am not a writer and never will be. This book saved me several years of writing embarrassingly bad prose by showing me that good writing is beyond me. Klinkenborg taught me that writing is hard and painful, and that every sentence has to be carefully labored over and crafted with care and attention like a piece in a mosaic; and that flowing, natural writing does not exist, and the writing that comes naturally to me is always wrong.
This was immensely liberating to realize.
Thank you, Mr. Klinkeborg. Now I can go to law school.
This was immensely liberating to realize.
Thank you, Mr. Klinkeborg. Now I can go to law school.
May 24, 2016
This is probably one of my favorite craft books now. I don't agree with every point the author makes, but in this case, that fact does not detract from the text at all. Instead, the book is a celebration of the sentence. It encourages reader-writers to move away from expectations, rules, and rigid education to instead explore possibilities, experiment, and push the boundaries. It is a book about excitement and opportunity, not forsaking conventio, but embracing the agency of the writer while encouraging freedom and confidence. Overall, it's a refreshing and inspiring viewpoint to consider and interpret in light of individual goals and experiences.
September 27, 2024
There are a lot of books about "the art of the sentence"—many pedantic, finicky, excessively prescriptive, as if good writing can be distilled into a simple how-to manual. But good writing is not rote, and these books tend to be meretricious, providing formulas for grammatical correctness rather than a guide to artful and elegant writing. Klinkenborg's book is different; it eschews rules; it isn't fussy. The sentences are short. The tone is revolutionary. His voice is oracular. There is nothing about avoiding the passive voice, nothing about the crime of the split infinitive, nothing about the use of whom instead of who, the typical scrupulous nitpicking of Strunk's Elements of Style and others in that tradition. Klinkenborg throws off the shackles of handbook advice and gives instead a declaration of the ethos of good writing. A good writer is one who notices what interests them, is attentive to sentences and their shape, reads their sentences aloud, always sensitively listening for faltering syntax and awkward infelicities. A good writer knows what they want to say and knows whether their sentence says it. A good writer isn't simply arranging words on a page but "turning the world into words". A good writer is patient, a good writer is yearning, a good writer is constantly revising their sentence (never writing a draft to be corrected later). A good writer has the reader's trust. Good writing is more about process than product.
It almost reads like beat poetry: pithy, spoken, rebellious, a cri de coeur against a tradition of composition pedagogy that teaches writing in a way that suppresses individual thought and expression: as he notes in one clarion call, "The central fact of your education is this: You've been taught to believe that what you discover by thinking is unimportant and unauthorized". I am guilty of this—teaching students to use analytical verbs or to sign-post their argument with connective words (even that unidiomatic "indeed" or "however"), scaffolding students' writing with topic sentences and paragraph recipes, emphasizing the importance of outlines and drafting. What were originally intended as training wheels to help students understand the parts and processes of writing have become stumbling blocks, resulting in clumsy prose or stilted catchphrases ("volunteer sentences" as he calls them.) Such writing pedagogy robs students of the license and authority to experiment with sentences and assess for themselves what works.
I think this is a fantastic book but, at some point, the uninterrupted litany of vatic pronouncements became too much, too little variation with little concrete application. When he eventually did provide models and examples of writing to appreciate and critique, his own questions and comments seemed a little absolutist (and maybe then he did seem a little pedantic).
It almost reads like beat poetry: pithy, spoken, rebellious, a cri de coeur against a tradition of composition pedagogy that teaches writing in a way that suppresses individual thought and expression: as he notes in one clarion call, "The central fact of your education is this: You've been taught to believe that what you discover by thinking is unimportant and unauthorized". I am guilty of this—teaching students to use analytical verbs or to sign-post their argument with connective words (even that unidiomatic "indeed" or "however"), scaffolding students' writing with topic sentences and paragraph recipes, emphasizing the importance of outlines and drafting. What were originally intended as training wheels to help students understand the parts and processes of writing have become stumbling blocks, resulting in clumsy prose or stilted catchphrases ("volunteer sentences" as he calls them.) Such writing pedagogy robs students of the license and authority to experiment with sentences and assess for themselves what works.
I think this is a fantastic book but, at some point, the uninterrupted litany of vatic pronouncements became too much, too little variation with little concrete application. When he eventually did provide models and examples of writing to appreciate and critique, his own questions and comments seemed a little absolutist (and maybe then he did seem a little pedantic).
March 25, 2021
One for the dream floor to ceiling bookshelf.
We all write in some capacity across our daily lives. Klinkenborg's advice tends towards sentences of simplicity, clarity and rhythm. He guides us to see and perceive the world with heightened awareness. He asks us to imagine intelligent, lively and engaged readers.
A sage reminder not to torture our sentences or our readers.
Prepare to reflect, unlearn and dissect your own and others' writing.
We all write in some capacity across our daily lives. Klinkenborg's advice tends towards sentences of simplicity, clarity and rhythm. He guides us to see and perceive the world with heightened awareness. He asks us to imagine intelligent, lively and engaged readers.
A sage reminder not to torture our sentences or our readers.
Prepare to reflect, unlearn and dissect your own and others' writing.
September 5, 2014
One of the best books on writing ever.
I do, intuitively, a lot of stuff he talks about: for example, I vary the length of my sentences, and I craft my long ones as a series of short sentences, separated by commas and dashes.
I try to write texts which can be read aloud and sound natural (although I know writing is not natural - a point Klinkenborg makes too). I revise while reading aloud, too. I also believe the only honest form of writing is witnessing - writing what you notice and what you think.
But a lot of stuff he talks about is really new for me. And runs contrary to what I've been trying to do lately - that is, to create the habit of writing daily, thinking while scribbling row after row in a notebook.
He says good writing is done, first of all, in the head (I remember Rousseau wrote like that - polishing a paragraph for hours in his head, and only afterwards writing it, with a minimum of revision on paper - and I think a lot of classics wrote that way too). You create a sentence about what interests you - try to make it as good as possible, and then write it. And then think about the next sentence - the sentence the previous one makes possible. This seems to be the approach he recommends.
I tried, lately, to do the opposite. Write, and only then look closely at what I have written. And revise. But, anyway, he also says that research (which includes note-taking) is a different process than writing. And revision is indispensable anyway. I'll try to write 'his way' and see what changes.
Anyway, I'm ranting now.
The book is beautifully written and as clear and vivid as it can get, the sentences are cut as verse - in order to emphasize his points about rhythm - and the feeling I had about the text is that of a personal letter written by a highly intelligent friend.
I do, intuitively, a lot of stuff he talks about: for example, I vary the length of my sentences, and I craft my long ones as a series of short sentences, separated by commas and dashes.
I try to write texts which can be read aloud and sound natural (although I know writing is not natural - a point Klinkenborg makes too). I revise while reading aloud, too. I also believe the only honest form of writing is witnessing - writing what you notice and what you think.
But a lot of stuff he talks about is really new for me. And runs contrary to what I've been trying to do lately - that is, to create the habit of writing daily, thinking while scribbling row after row in a notebook.
He says good writing is done, first of all, in the head (I remember Rousseau wrote like that - polishing a paragraph for hours in his head, and only afterwards writing it, with a minimum of revision on paper - and I think a lot of classics wrote that way too). You create a sentence about what interests you - try to make it as good as possible, and then write it. And then think about the next sentence - the sentence the previous one makes possible. This seems to be the approach he recommends.
I tried, lately, to do the opposite. Write, and only then look closely at what I have written. And revise. But, anyway, he also says that research (which includes note-taking) is a different process than writing. And revision is indispensable anyway. I'll try to write 'his way' and see what changes.
Anyway, I'm ranting now.
The book is beautifully written and as clear and vivid as it can get, the sentences are cut as verse - in order to emphasize his points about rhythm - and the feeling I had about the text is that of a personal letter written by a highly intelligent friend.
February 9, 2021
The author says it is better to write good sentences rather than bad ones. It is better to be inspired rather than uninspired. Very good advice.
September 12, 2025
This shit'll get ya fuckin' PSYCHED about WRITIN dawg!
Mostly aimed at young folk straight out of an English/Journalism MA (which I am pointedly not), this nonetheless had me going Sicko-at-the-Window several times.
Choose joy! Choose power! Authority! They're in your grasp! And the reader's! You need only be willing to.... let love in.....
Mostly aimed at young folk straight out of an English/Journalism MA (which I am pointedly not), this nonetheless had me going Sicko-at-the-Window several times.
Choose joy! Choose power! Authority! They're in your grasp! And the reader's! You need only be willing to.... let love in.....
June 5, 2025
“Writing becomes intrinsic to the act of thinking”
Feeling enlightened. Teaching yourself how to write well means (re)learning how to think, listen, notice, and question. You have free will. Uncertainty is your friend.
Feeling enlightened. Teaching yourself how to write well means (re)learning how to think, listen, notice, and question. You have free will. Uncertainty is your friend.
August 22, 2013
Any reader who enthuses over this book is going to have a hard time writing about it. And that’s funny. Because it’s a book about writing. If a book about writing has done its job, then writing about it—writing about anything—should be easier, no?
If that’s your goal…consult a different book.
If your goal, as a reader, is to strengthen your writing…this might be just the book for you.
Klinkenborg makes the claim that our educational system, and our culture at large, doesn’t get the point of the written word. The result is a lot of bad writing. And less and less reading. Less and less joy.
All readers, and future writers, start off in a bliss state. Then we go school. There we are taught to approach the writing we encounter as though it were a conveyance of a unit of meaning.
Klinkenborg proposes, “Our conventional idea of meaning is something like
“what can be restated.”
It means a summary.
It means ‘in other words.’”
Think back. When you were in English class, how much time did you spend reading a piece aloud? Just for the fun of it. Just to appreciate the rhythm. The nuances. The unexpected twists. The pure aesthetic bliss.
Chances are, you read like that in kindergarten. In circle time.
But as you progressed in school, all writing was presented as a puzzle to be solved. You heard the same question, “What does this story/essay/article mean?”
Chances are, that question was met with a deafening silence. Every student was implicated in the silence…as being too stupid to answer the question.
Klinkenborg proposes there is an alternative explanation for the silence.
“What does it mean”…is not the right question to ask.
“Writing isn’t a conveyer belt bearing the reader to “the point” at the end of the piece, where the meaning will be revealed.
Good writing is significant everywhere.
Delightful everywhere.”
A student’s delight gets squelched by the teacher’s insistence that reading is merely a pursuit of meaning.
“…what if meaning isn’t the
sole purpose of the sentence?
What if it’s only the chief attribute
among many, a tool, among
others, that helps the writer shape
or revise the sentence?
What if the virtue, the value, of the
sentence is the sentence itself and
Not its extractable meaning?”
“What if you wrote as though sentences can’t be
summarized?
What if you value every one of a sentence’s attributes
and not merely its meaning?
Strangely enough, this is how you read when you were a
Child.
Children read repetitively and with incredible exactitude.
They demand the very sentence—
word for word—and no other.
The meaning of the sentence is never a substitute for the
Sentence itself.
Not to a six-year old.
This is still an excellent way to read.”
If you were paying attention to the above quotation, you will begin to grasp my dilemna as the reviewer of Klinkenborg’s book. Your expectation for a book review probably includes a summary. Klinkenborg isn’t too fond of summaries. To tell you the truth, no writer wants their work summarized. They have already chosen exactly the words that would tell their story.
Writing is so darn grueling because writing is the manifestation of an exacting form of thinking; a process of choosing precisely the right word, and then the next, and then the next, and so on. Klikenborg describes this process with laudable accuracy, which is why I find myself returning to this book again and again.
If that’s your goal…consult a different book.
If your goal, as a reader, is to strengthen your writing…this might be just the book for you.
Klinkenborg makes the claim that our educational system, and our culture at large, doesn’t get the point of the written word. The result is a lot of bad writing. And less and less reading. Less and less joy.
All readers, and future writers, start off in a bliss state. Then we go school. There we are taught to approach the writing we encounter as though it were a conveyance of a unit of meaning.
Klinkenborg proposes, “Our conventional idea of meaning is something like
“what can be restated.”
It means a summary.
It means ‘in other words.’”
Think back. When you were in English class, how much time did you spend reading a piece aloud? Just for the fun of it. Just to appreciate the rhythm. The nuances. The unexpected twists. The pure aesthetic bliss.
Chances are, you read like that in kindergarten. In circle time.
But as you progressed in school, all writing was presented as a puzzle to be solved. You heard the same question, “What does this story/essay/article mean?”
Chances are, that question was met with a deafening silence. Every student was implicated in the silence…as being too stupid to answer the question.
Klinkenborg proposes there is an alternative explanation for the silence.
“What does it mean”…is not the right question to ask.
“Writing isn’t a conveyer belt bearing the reader to “the point” at the end of the piece, where the meaning will be revealed.
Good writing is significant everywhere.
Delightful everywhere.”
A student’s delight gets squelched by the teacher’s insistence that reading is merely a pursuit of meaning.
“…what if meaning isn’t the
sole purpose of the sentence?
What if it’s only the chief attribute
among many, a tool, among
others, that helps the writer shape
or revise the sentence?
What if the virtue, the value, of the
sentence is the sentence itself and
Not its extractable meaning?”
“What if you wrote as though sentences can’t be
summarized?
What if you value every one of a sentence’s attributes
and not merely its meaning?
Strangely enough, this is how you read when you were a
Child.
Children read repetitively and with incredible exactitude.
They demand the very sentence—
word for word—and no other.
The meaning of the sentence is never a substitute for the
Sentence itself.
Not to a six-year old.
This is still an excellent way to read.”
If you were paying attention to the above quotation, you will begin to grasp my dilemna as the reviewer of Klinkenborg’s book. Your expectation for a book review probably includes a summary. Klinkenborg isn’t too fond of summaries. To tell you the truth, no writer wants their work summarized. They have already chosen exactly the words that would tell their story.
Writing is so darn grueling because writing is the manifestation of an exacting form of thinking; a process of choosing precisely the right word, and then the next, and then the next, and so on. Klikenborg describes this process with laudable accuracy, which is why I find myself returning to this book again and again.
June 18, 2013
This book was recommended to me by my youngest son who said he wished he'd discovered this book earlier in his life - but that would have been impossible, because the book hadn't yet been written! I liked this book mostly because it's a fun, fine book, but also because it was recommended by my son.
From the preface:
"The premise of this book is that most of the received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but harmful. This is not an assumption. It’s a conclusion."
You can start this book at the beginning and read straight through. Or open the book to any page and read whatever you see. Each section stands on its own.
The insights in this book are wonderful, the advice simple, sound, and profound. Selections from other writers are wonderfully chosen and soothing to mind and soul.
Ironically, I found that reading the book straight through became repetitive, even a bit tedious, in spite of (mostly) short sentences. So I ended up skimming some, until I got to inspiring excerpts of writing by other authors, and Klinkenborg's fine commentaries on them.
Here are a few more selections from Klinkenborg's wisdom.
Know what each sentence says,
What it doesn’t say,
And what it implies.
Of these, the hardest is knowing what each sentence actually says.
… make short sentences.
Short sentences aren’t hard to make.
The difficulty is forcing yourself to keep them short.
There are innumerable ways to write badly.
The usual way is making sentences that don’t say what you think they do.
* * *
…Imagine it this way:
One by one, each sentence takes the stage.
It says the very thing it comes into existence to say.
Then it leaves the stage.
It doesn’t help the next one up or the previous one down.
It doesn’t wave to its friends in the audience
Or pause to be acknowledged or applauded.
It doesn’t talk about what it’s saying.
It simply says its piece and leaves the stage.
From the preface:
"The premise of this book is that most of the received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but harmful. This is not an assumption. It’s a conclusion."
You can start this book at the beginning and read straight through. Or open the book to any page and read whatever you see. Each section stands on its own.
The insights in this book are wonderful, the advice simple, sound, and profound. Selections from other writers are wonderfully chosen and soothing to mind and soul.
Ironically, I found that reading the book straight through became repetitive, even a bit tedious, in spite of (mostly) short sentences. So I ended up skimming some, until I got to inspiring excerpts of writing by other authors, and Klinkenborg's fine commentaries on them.
Here are a few more selections from Klinkenborg's wisdom.
Know what each sentence says,
What it doesn’t say,
And what it implies.
Of these, the hardest is knowing what each sentence actually says.
… make short sentences.
Short sentences aren’t hard to make.
The difficulty is forcing yourself to keep them short.
There are innumerable ways to write badly.
The usual way is making sentences that don’t say what you think they do.
* * *
…Imagine it this way:
One by one, each sentence takes the stage.
It says the very thing it comes into existence to say.
Then it leaves the stage.
It doesn’t help the next one up or the previous one down.
It doesn’t wave to its friends in the audience
Or pause to be acknowledged or applauded.
It doesn’t talk about what it’s saying.
It simply says its piece and leaves the stage.
July 30, 2023
for a book that speaks extensively about clarity i found that many points of this book were repetitive and there was a lot of irony about favoring short clear sentences over long ones considering the format it was written in. had these “short” sentences been condensed and written in a normal format they would be longer than presented in prose/verse. i think some of the most insightful parts of the book are those made about valuing your own intelligence and ability to tell a story while not assuming poorly of your reader, and that a good story will lead the reader itself without hand feeding it to them. i think collectively we must allow ourselves to be bad while we learn to be good storytellers. there should be no rush or pressure to be perfect the first time or no matter the draft. as long as you seek to understand your shortcomings as a storyteller and writer you will improve with time. the importance of trusting yourself enough to push through the comfortableness of writing and storytelling because it is uncomfortable and vulnerable to leave parts of yourself behind for others to find and criticize.
October 11, 2022
This book is as dry as the Sahara desert and I mean it. For a full 20 pages (pages 61 to 80) all Klinkenborg talks about is flow. What makes it even worse is that he tries to slide the fact that there is a correlation between writer's block and flow and there isn't. I know there is alot of 5 star reviews on this book, but I really think that there are few pieces of advice, but not many. Klinkenborg says that writing should have a flow and not be choppy to be good. But this book has NO FLOW! It's literally so choppy and doesn't make any sense. I would give this book 0 stars, but I can't Goodreads doesn't allow me and I got one piece of good advice.
Thank you for listening to my Ted talk, Cordelia
Thank you for listening to my Ted talk, Cordelia
September 26, 2017
I feel that Klinkenborg has some interesting ideas about writing. I wouldn't say that it's the most informative book because of how arrogant and self-righteous he is but I definitely learned a few things. For instance, he questions why we use transitions in writing and I sort of agree with him in that they don't always serve a purpose. However I found it very hard to take him seriously all the time because he presented his ideas in a way that seemed to suggest "everything you know about writing is wrong."
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