As summer blooms, so too does my urge to garden, both with dirt and plants and also with words. While I’ve talked a good bit in the past about “novel gardening” and how it applies to big picture edits, I haven’t discussed its counterpart of line editing, which I think of as curating a small flower bed. Many people speak about flowery language as a negative, but I believe with a bit of cultivation and judicious weeding, even the most flowery sentences can be at once beautiful and powerful.

This is by no means prescriptive advice. Rather, this is what’s helpful to me as I write. Your process may look completely different, and that’s wonderful. If we all wrote or gardened the same way, we would soon grow bored of the neat rows of flowers and manicured prose.

The Sentence as a Flower Bed

Words, like flowers, can be powerful, beautiful, healing, and sometimes even dangerous. Some are small and weedy (a, in, but, of), some are striking and sublime (abnegation, ethereal, susurration), still others are practical and useful (and, the, so, because). Oh, if only we could smell words. But we can smell books, which are heady and intoxicating in their own way (yes, I’m one of those book-smelling weirdos). That will have to content us for now. In any case, a sentence needs all types of words, much as a garden needs all types of plants. It would be overpowering to walk into a garden of nothing but corpse flowers (the stench!), or birds of paradise (the drama!), or even dandelions (the allergies!). In the same way, sentences work best with a harmonious blend of words.

As much as I love a meadow overflowing with wildflowers, I also believe that in the garden of prose, there is a time and a place for such abundance. My basic approach to sentence gardening is that the prose should reflect the character’s internal landscape. If they are thoughtful and languorous, then by all means, ramble through the wildflowers and stop to smell some lovely words or turns of phrase along the way. If the character is experiencing fear, anger, or fast-paced action, keep their landscape stark: a single blood-red rose, a piece of twisted driftwood alone on the rocks, a jut of sharp grasses cutting across the sky.

Strong Verbs

My single best piece of advice for sentence gardening is to use strong and active verbs. Let the entire flowerbed revolve around them. A strong verb is a centifolia rose, an orchid, a black dahlia (the flower kind, not the murder kind): the captivating heart of your sentence. Avoid passive verbs wherever possible (am, is, are, was, were, etc.) and replace them with active verbs. Strong verbs can characterize a place or character as much as blocks of description. For instance, if your character is a gardener, try to use plant-based verbs: ideas root, thoughts blossom, seed doubts, plant information, prune expectations, etc. Match the rest of the language in the sentence/paragraph to that same theme. Let’s try a few examples, mm?

Original sentence: Sara was upset that Sam didn’t invite her to the party.

Better: Disappointment grew in Sara’s heart as she looked at her blank screen. Still no invitation from Sam.

Best: Briars twisted through Sara’s rib cage as she stared at her blank screen, biting deeper as “read” appeared next to her last message. Sam’s party would be in full-bloom by now.

Yes, the sentence gets longer with each revision, but we also get deeper into Sara’s emotions and therefore feel more connected to her. While the first two sentences tell us, directly and indirectly, what Sara is feeling, the last sentence shows us and lets us feel it for ourselves. We feel the contrast between Sara’s briars and the lush blooms of the party, which helps us feel Sara’s isolation and disappointment.

Weeding Your Sentences

I keep a list on my desk of words to avoid in writing. A large portion of this list comes courtesy of Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer, a delightful romp through the world of grammar and usage. Additions to this list have been made by my brother, a brilliant professor of rhetoric and composition. These words can almost always be weeded, or rendered unnecessary with a stronger verb or tighter sentence structure.

very
rather
really
quite
in fact
just
so
pretty
of course
surely
that said
actually

Adverbs, especially -ly adverbs (i.e. dreamily, quickly, loudly, etc.) can almost always be added to this list of weeds to pull. In most cases, replacing an adverb + verb combo with a stronger, more specific verb can render the adverb unnecessary. The exception being if the adverb communicates necessary/relevant information that cannot be fixed with a stronger verb.
For example:
Original: The dog ran away quickly from the mean cat.
Better: The dog sped away from the mean cat.
Best: The dog fled.

Sentence Ikebana

During high school, I lived as a foreign exchange student in Japan. While I was there, I had the honor of taking a class with an ikebana master. Ikebana is the art of flower arranging, but it is also a meditation on balance and restraint. Simple, well-crafted sentences can speak volumes. For example:

Original: It stormed outside.

Better: A storm raged outside.

Best: The sky howled.

In this example, with each revision the emotion of the sentence becomes clearer and therefore stronger. By the last sentence, there can be no doubt about the emotional impact of the sentence.

Of course, there is a time and a place for such piercing sentences. If, for instance, the characters are celebrating a romantic picnic when it begins to storm, the move from tender happiness to raging storm may be a bit jolting. It could, however, be used to signify an underlying conflict, subtext, or rising tension between the picnicking lovers. Always use emotion in service of the story: whether building tension, elucidating underlying questions, or deepening a character.

The Senses of the Sentence

One of my favorite parts of walking through a garden is smelling and feeling it. I love running my hands through rosemary, feeling the thin leaves tickle my palms, hearing the gentle whisper of the movement, tasting the bitter note of the fresh leaves, and smelling the herbaceous scent on my skin afterwards. Similarly, I enjoy engaging all my senses while reading: rolling words over my tongue, hearing them spoken aloud, smelling the memories they provoke, tasting the smooth edge of the structure. This is not to say that every sentence should speak to every sense. Rather, create sentences that can fully envelope your reader, sinking them into the world of your words.

Not sure how to make a sensory garden of your sentences? Here are a few suggestions:

-Use words with sounds that mimic the mood/tone of the sentence. For instance, if describing a sleepy, dreamlike state use words with soft cozy sounds: cloud, shush, woolen, sonorous, plush, velvety, moon.

-Use a literal sense, such as smell, to elevate the atmosphere of your prose: Cool spring rain soaked the moss carpet, its scent flooding the room.

-Use punctuation to prick tongues into pausing. For example: The cat, waiting, watched the door.

-Create sentences you can swim into. Imagine lowering yourself into the words and gliding out into the space they create. For example: Rivers flow through wooded hollows, floating toward the sea.
Can’t you feel the cool water on your skin? Smell the scent of sunlight and river water?

-Create a visual landscape with your words. For instance, if you’re conjuring a vacant, overgrown lot use tall, weedy words: Thistles and thorns grabbed at my trousers, ivy tangling my every step.

Beware of Weird Invasive Tenses

English has some weird grammar. As a polyglot, I say this with great certainty and experience. As persnickety as languages like German or Japanese can be, at least they have well-ordered, logical grammar.

As such, we who write in English must beware the weird grammar that lurks in the wilds and can become invasive in our prose gardens. Here’s an example that I pulled from ESL Buzz :

Unless you have a specific reason for doing so, stick with active simple tenses as much as possible. Personally, I have a bad habit of writing in perfect tense (i.e. adding has/had/have to the verb). Thankfully this is an easy thing to correct in revision (I had made a cake—>I baked a cake). Nine times out of ten, you can correct these bits of awkward phrasing by simply replacing the verb with a stronger, more specific verb (in my example: changing “had made” to “baked”).

The best advice I can give for correcting awkward bits of grammar (even if technically correct) is to read the sentence out loud. Actually, this is some of my best writing advice period.

Read your writing out loud.

What does a crab have to do with sentence gardening? Absolutely nothing. He’s just cute.

I like to read to my dog (she’s a much kinder and more attentive audience than my cat), but you could read to a friend, a tree, a family member, or even an empty room. The important thing is to say your word-gardens out loud. This will help streamline your prose and keep it in a consistent, flowing voice.