Partial sentences make your copy clip along faster
Mrs. Webb, your 3rd-grade teacher, probably counseled you to avoid sentence fragments.

Mrs. Webb was wrong. Sentence fragments can help you:
- Create drama
- Make a transition
- Emphasize an important idea
- Change the pace of your piece
- Make your copy sound conversational
- And, of course, make sentences shorter
Write fragments like Paul Harding.
Here’s how it works, in a passage from Paul Harding’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Tinkers:
“He found that bankers paid well to keep their balky heirlooms telling time. He could replace the worn tooth on a strike wheel by hand. Lay the clock facedown. Unscrew the screws; maybe just pull them from the cedar or walnut case, the threads long since turned to wood dust dusted from mantels. Lift off the back of the clock like the lid of a treasure chest. Bring the long-armed jeweler’s lamp closer, to just over your shoulder. Examine the dark brass. See the pinions gummed up with dirt and oil. Look at the blue and green and purple ripples of metal hammered, bent, torched. Poke your finger into the clock; fiddle the escape wheel (every part perfectly named-escape: the end of the machine, the place where the energy leaks out, breaks free, beats time). Stick your nose closer; the metal smells tannic. Read the names etched onto the works: Ezra Bloxham-1794; Geo. E. Tiggs-1832; Thos. Flatchbart-1912. Lift the darkened works from the case. Lower them into ammonia. Lift them out, nose burning, eyes watering, and see them shine and star through your tears. File the teeth. Punch the bushings. Load the springs. Fix the clock. Add your name.”
Used strategically, fragments can make your copy tighter and more interesting.
Period.
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