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Q&A How to decide which sentence structure is correct?

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 ou...

posted 7y ago by prosepraise‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-28T15:45:03Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29384
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:48:01Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29384
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T06:48:01Z (about 5 years ago)
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](https://jessicadall.com/2012/04/03/all-of-a-sudden-he-was-suddenly-there/) 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.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-07-27T00:55:42Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 2