How to decide which sentence structure is correct?
I'm trying to describe an action (a gust of wind blows) and its result (the flame is doused) and its subsequent effect (the room is plunged into darkness). However, I'm facing some issues with how to present them in a way which feels immediate. The sentences that I've come up with are as below but all of them feel perfectly ok to me:
- The flames were suddenly doused by a gust of wind as the room was plunged into darkness.
- The room was plunged into darkness as the flames were suddenly doused by a gust of wind.
- A gust of wind suddenly doused the flames, plunging the room into darkness.
(I know that each sentence just changes the subject which is focused on but then how do I decide which subject is to be focused on?)
As an extension of this question, How do I decide which sentence feels correct in a particular scenario when multiple structures feel perfect to me?
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1 answer
You've gotten answers picking each sentence -- they all work!
It's going to come down to your opinion, which one you think sounds best.
To get a better feel for it, I suggest reading each one out loud, in context (read a couple sentences before and after) to hear which one sounds best.
I also have to agree with the others suggesting removing "suddenly". Jessica Dall's blog post describes how having extraneous words like suddenly slows down the pacing:
Often when editing, I’ll put in the suggestion to keep sentences short in high action scenes. You can’t control much about the pacing as far as how your readers read a scene, but sentence length and paragraph breaks are a good way of speeding up and slowing down action. The shorter you keep a sentence the more immediate the action is. For example: “He ran.” Two words, the reader knows exactly what’s happening and is on to the next piece of information. Make it longer, however–“He began to run”–means it’s going to take the reader longer to make it through one action. The longer it takes to read something, the slower the action feels. The same goes for breaks. When reading, a comma is a generally a quick pause in the reader’s mind. A period is a full stop.
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