Bestselling authors may write great paragraphs, but we can learn ways to make them even better.
A great paragraph from The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins:
It’s a glorious evening, warm but not too close, the sun starting its lazy descent, shadows lengthening and the light just beginning to burnish the trees with gold. The train is rattling along, we whip past Jason and Jess’s place, they pass in a blur of evening sunshine. Sometimes, not often, I can see them from this side of the track. If there’s no train going in the opposite direction, and if we’re travelling slowly enough, I can sometimes catch a glimpse of them out on their terrace. If not—like today—I can imagine them. Jess will be sitting with her feet up on the table out on the terrace, a glass of wine in her hand, Jason standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders. I can imagine the feel of his hands, the weight of them, reassuring and protective. Sometimes I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful contact with another person, just a hug or heartfelt squeeze of my hand, and my heart twitches.
What we might see for an improved version:
The sun is descending lazily, shadows lengthening, the light burnishing the trees with gold. As the train rattles along, we whip past Jason and Jess’s place, a blur in the evening sunshine. Sometimes I see them from this side of the track. If no train is going in the opposite direction and we’re moving slowly enough, I may glimpse them on their terrace. If not—like today—I can imagine them. Jess is sitting with her feet up on the table, a glass of wine in her hand, with Jason standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders. I feel his hands, the weight of them, reassuring and protective. I catch myself trying to remember the last time I had meaningful contact with another person, just a hug or heartfelt squeeze of my hand—and my heart twitches.
Some logic for making improvements:
- We don’t need to be told the evening is glorious, since we see the glory in what she observes.
- Readers might question whether the outside warmth is something she can feel inside the train. To avoid the point-of-view conflict, we should delete “warm but not too close,” which adds strength to what is observed.
- “The sun descending lazily” is stronger than saying it merely was starting to descend.
- “The light burnishing the trees with gold” is stronger than saying the light was just beginning to do that.
- The second sentence joins independent clauses with commas and no conjunction, which violates the best grammatical standards. Instead of using a period after the independent clause “the train is rattling along,” we can create a dependent introductory phrase “as the train rattles along” and use the comma.
- As an independent clause, “they pass in a blur of evening sunshine” needs to be a separate sentence, but we can do better with a trailing explanatory phrase: “a blur in the evening sunshine.”
- We don’t need the “not often” clarification of “sometime,” and can leave that phrase out.
- The important reality is that she sometimes sees them, so we can delete “can.”
- “No train is going” is better than “there’s no train going” because we begin with a noun, not “there.”
- “Moving” has a better feel of motion than the descriptive “traveling.”
- In the context of “sometimes” that was established earlier, we don’t want “sometimes out of the sometimes.” Within the “sometimes,” she “may” see them on the terrace.
- The simple “glimpse” is better than “catch a glimpse.”
- In her point of view, she is imagining now, a present reality of mind that should avoid the indefinite verb “will.” Instead of “Jess will be sitting,” we want “Jess is sitting.”
- “Out on the terrace” is redundant. We already know that.
- We’re already a part of her mental image, so we don’t need to be told “I can imagine.” We can go directly to the feel of his hands.
- In the last sentence, we don’t need to repeat “sometimes” for the third time.
