The Sentence Variety Dialogue Page
VK: I once had a job. . .
Larry: Big deal! I worked once too.
VK: C'mon, give me a break. I'm trying to make a point here.
Larry: Again with the point! OK, you once had a job. What job?
VK: I was writing for a newspaper that was distributed to adults who had very little education.
Larry: Could they read?
VK: Most of them. Enough of them for me to keep my job.
Larry: Must have been easy, the way you BS.
VK: Well, actually, I had to learn how to write in a simple enough manner to be read, but still make it interesting enough to read.
Larry: Like a kid's book?
VK: Sort of, but only with adult subject matter.
Larry: "Adult", huh? I bet it was interesting!
VK: Ha-ha. I had to write within the boundaries set up by the editor.
Larry: Boundaries?
VK: Yeah. The rule was, "No sentence may be longer than five words, and no word may be more than two syllables."
Larry: Sounds easy! And you got paid?
VK: Try it sometime. Try writing a story about the history of lima beans while you follow that rule. It took me a few weeks, but eventually I got the hang of it.
Larry: How?
VK: By making my sentences be different patterns. Instead of using the kind of simplistic stuff used for kid's books, you know, "See Dick Run. Run, Dick, run. . ."
Larry: Don't be a dick.
VK: Well, in my case, I avoided dickness by using varied sentences. " Lima beans have protein. Have vitamins. Families have survived on them."
Larry: Hey! a couple of those words have three syllables.
VK: Hmmm. So they do. Sometimes we'd hedge if the word was very common. But I want you to notice the three different forms I used.
Larry: So, what you're saying is if you can write simple sentences you can get a job.
VK: Arghhhh! No! What I'm saying is, if you can learn to vary your sentences, you are better equipped to write interesting papers.
Larry: At least about lima beans.
VK: Especially about lima beans!
