WRITING LESSSON: Expanding with Loose (or Taffy) Sentences and Periodic Sentences (or Suspentences)


In writing, two sentence patterns are of major importance:
• The Loose (or Taffy) Sentence
• The Periodic Sentence (or Suspentence)
Every sentence in the English language will fit into one of these categories or will be a combination of both. Once you understand the two patterns, you can write any kind of sentence you like without the slightest fear of going astray.
You can master these patterns easily if you first get a grip on one important principle: The principle of the basic statement (main idea).
The following are basic statements:
1. Bells rang.
2. Love is blind.
3. The cat scratched Louie.
4. Hammy gave Delycia flowers.
5. The teacher considered Hammy a good student.
Every English sentence contains a basic statement. It may stand alone as one short sentence as in the examples above, or it may be buried inside a longer sentence. It is the kernel that you have left after you chop away everything in a sentence except its essential meaning; it is the kernel you build on when you want to make a sentence longer.


DEFINITION: THE LOOSE (or TAFFY) SENTENCE:
This sentence is a basic statement with a string of details added at the end, after the subject and verb. You might say the basic statement is pulled out at the end like a piece of taffy.
Basic statement: Bells rang.
Loose (or taffy) sentence: Bells rang, filling the air with their clangor, startling pigeons into flight from every belfry, bringing people into the streets to hear the news.
Basic statement: The teacher considered Hammy a good student.
Loose (or taffy) sentence: The teacher considered Hammy a good student, steady if not inspired, willing if not eager, responsive to instruction and conscientious about his work.




DEFINITION: THE PERIODIC SENTENCE (or SUSPENTENCE):
In this sentence, additional details are placed before the basic statement. Delay, or suspense, is the secret weapon of the periodic sentence, because the verb (and sometimes even the subject) is held off until the end.


Basic statement: Hammy gave Delycia flowers.
Periodic sentence (suspentence): Hammy, the tough guy, the sullen old man who scoffed at any show of sentiment, gave Delycia flowers.
Basic statement: The cat scratched Annie.
Periodic sentence (suspentence):: Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the sweet, loveable, and well-behaved cat scratched Annie.


THE PERIODIC (INTERRUPTIVE): In this sentence, additional details are added inside the basic statement:
Basic statement: Love is blind.
Periodic sentence: Love, as everyone knows except those who happen to be afflicted with it, is blind.


THE COMBINATION: In this sentence, additional details are added before and after the basic statement.
Once you have learned to recognize and use the two major sentence patterns, you can forget about adhering to them strickly. You can combine elements of both if you wish.
Suppose you are working with a short, simple sentence--A sentence reduced to the barest basic statement: Julia was angry.
This short sentence may sound exactly right inside your paragraph--just short enough and sharp enough to have the force you want. In that case, leave it alone. But perhaps that nagging inner ear tells you that it isn't quite right; it needs something. Thus, you make it a shade more periodic:
Asia was suddenly, violently angry.
Or you make it even more periodic:
Morgan, usually the calmest of boys, was suddenly, violently angry.
Or you decide to add detail at the end:
Lily, usually the calmest of people, was suddenly, violently angry, so angry that she punched young Joseph.
Now the sentence is both periodic and loose. You could shake it up still more by moving some of the detail up front:
Usually the calmest of girls, Madeline was suddenly, violently angry, so angry that she lost control completely.


EXPANDING THE SUBJECT, VERB, AND OBJECT
Periodic structures usually expand the subject or verb. Loose structures expand the verb or object.
Expanding the Subject:
The easiest way to start the details flowing is to think of the subject as being followed by a pause. Make yourself hear that pause. It is exactly the same kind of pause that occurs in your own conversation every day, in sentences like the following. Notice these sentences are periodic (interruptive)and they expand the subjects.
That boy, the one wearing glasses, is in my history class.
This piecrust, tough as it is, tastes pretty good.
Here's another example: The class (pause) read the assignment.
The class, a mixture of juniors and seniors in advanced math, read the assignment.
The class, usually noisy and inattentive, read the assignment.
The class, with a subdued rustle of books and papers, read the assignment.
When expanding the subject, consider these methods of expansion: description, appositive, adjective, prepositional phrase, participles, etc.
Expanding the Verb:
Expand the verb by showing how its action progresses. Any phrase that tells how or when a verb acts is related grammatically to the verb.
The class read, listlessly at first, and then with growing interest, the assignment.
The class read, after trying unsuccessfully to divert the instructor, the assignment.
Expanding the Object (or the rest of the sentence):
The class read the assignment, a full chapter.
I saw Mr. Hassenfeffer, the instructor.
The class read the assignment, a full chapter, with a dismaying number of difficult-looking statistical tables.
I saw Mr. Hassenfeffer, the instructor, flat-nosed, beady-eyes, on guard every minute.


Remember, written sentences should have the sound of speech--intelligent, highly ordered speech that sounds completely natural to the listening inner ear of the reader. The means to this naturalness is through variety in sentence patterns: basic statements, loose (taffy) sentences, periodic sentences (suspentences), and combinations. By learning to add detail in various ways to a basic statement, you can create any of these patterns; by alternating them, by striving consciously for variety, by listening to your sentences as well as looking at them, you can create the natural cadence of the human voice. The big obstacle that most student writers must overcome is the conviction that any sentence, once written, is an immovable and unchangeable object, like a chunk of concrete or an engraving on steel. Remember, a sentence is a thing of movable parts, an endlessly adaptable structure that is completely subject to the writer's will, shrinking or expanding to fit the sound and sense he or she chooses to give it.
So relax, loosen up. Play boldly with sentences. Combine, convert, shift, change, add, subtract, divide, multiply. Take chances. The more you experiment, the more you will learn.


DO THE FOLLOWING EXERCISES
Write a loose (taffy) sentence at lest twenty words long using each of the basic statements. Do not change the basic statement; just add to it.
• The moon rose.
• The man was dead.
• She liked the song.
• They had a good time.
Using the following basic statements, write four periodic sentences (suspentences) at least fifteen words long:
• Mary left the room.
• Hate is based on fear.
• The man was dead.
• The circus was his life.
Select four of the eight sentences you have just written and add details that will make each one a combination of the loose and the periodic.
Expand the subject on the sentence below:
• The old man shuffled out of sight.
Expand the verb of each of the following sentences.
• The girl walked across the playground.
• The boy talked about fishing.