Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft

De: Brooks Landon, The Great Courses

Narrado por: Brooks Landon

Why do some lengthy sentences flow effortlessly while others stumble along? Why are you captivated by the writing of particular authors? How can you craft sentences that reflect your unique outlook on the world?

This lively, 24-lecture course introduces you to the myriad ways in which we think about, talk about, and write sentences. Reviving the sentence-oriented approach to studying writing, Professor Landon provides a greater context for what makes sentences great - and how you can apply these methods to your own writing.

You'll look at the kernels from which sentences grow - minimal base clauses - and how adding words or phrases creates larger, cumulative sentences that lead toward great writing. You'll explore sentence constructions that make writing more complex and add exciting levels of suspense, and see tactics that create balance and rhythm.Recognizing and appreciating these and other eye-opening aspects of sentences helps you understand the work that goes into creating an effective, pleasurable sentence, which can make you more aware of why particular lines, passages, or phrases in the poems, novels, or articles you read so enchant you.

Professor Landon draws abundantly on examples from the work of brilliant writers, including Don DeLillo, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Johnson, and more. With its passionate approach to writing and reading and its indulgence in the sheer joy of language, this journey gives you unique insights into the nature of great writing-and also teaches you how you can achieve some of this greatness yourself.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.

©2008 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2008 The Great Courses

Torture until chapter 11, then golden!

As is often the case in life, one must live through a bit of pain to get to the good stuff. Such is the case, I found, with this fine coarse. Everything after chapter 10 is a treasure, so live through the prior to get to the later and you won't regret it. 😊👍

Has some valuable information, but it felt a bit l

If you could sum up Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft in three words, what would they be?

Detail, extension, and retooling.

What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?

The most interesting aspect of this lecture series is probably its initial focus on extending your sentences. It goes into great detail on the subject, and really gets you thinking about how to approach each sentence you write. Not really a huge revelation, but still really interesting, and probably something you never thought too much about.

As for the least interesting part, well that would probably be the fact that its just too long. In the second half things start to get less and less interesting, to the point where I just zoned out and stopped really paying attention.

What do you think the narrator could have done better?

Some people just have a natural talent for captivating an audiences attention, and professors are generally not in that camp. He did an ok job. I'm not really sure he could have done anything to make it better.

What did you learn from Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft that you would use in your daily life?

Probably nothing, that is to say unless you're a writer or have a passions for writing. I guess if you wanted to explore or expand upon your writing this may have same daily use value, but I think its more directed at people who like to write stories and what not.

Any additional comments?

If your interested in writing give it a go, you'll probably get something valuable out of it.

Good book

It is challenging to gather all the information presented in this course and the printed companion would be useful, but even so much insight is gained and I will listen to it again to fine tune my writing even further.

I appreciate long sentences more now

I am not a writer, but I bought this book because I am curious about how writers craft sentences. As the author clarifies early in the first chapter, this book is actually about building good LONG sentences. He explains how good, long, sustaining sentences are built. He cites many good examples from current and past writers. Some of the analytical observations and technical terms used to describe certain approaches in building sentences are bit too much for me, and I somehow doubt that Hemingway and other great writers studied these technical aspects of writing, but the materials covered in this book are still fascinating to me, and I now appreciate long sentences more. One small issue for me was that it took me some time to get used to this professor's tone of voice and his accents. You might want to check out the sample to hear his voice first to see if you are comfortable listening to the sound for 12 hours.

Worth Listening To

I loved this book. Dr. Landon brings things to mind about the construction of a sentence that I had never considered before. I am very interested in writing and have done a bit of amateur writing myself. It is something I would like to do more of in the future, and having read/listened to this book, I now believe I have a better chance at being good at it.

Dr. Landon is funny and serious, having a great way about him that holds the attention, which allows the learning to take place. This book is certainly not for everyone, but even if you do not ever intend to write an interesting sentence, being a bibliophile like I am, you may like this book because of the new, more enlightened way you are bound to read books. Hahaha, my sentences are still awkward, but now I have a pattern to follow that, with practice, will help me improve.

I certainly intend to listen to more of the "Great Courses" series. What a great way to educate oneself.

I Am Not As Bad A Writer As I Thought

Building Great Sentences: Exploring the Writer's Craft, a course by Brooks Landon. I suppose you can determine the effectiveness of the course in direct relationship to the quality, depth, and rhythm to the interesting nature of my written communication herein, or then again not.

The learning thread communicated in the course is antitypical. It makes the case that short sentences are not necessarily superior to involved, balanced, serial and other complex sentences. I do leave the study with a pronounced feeling that it has freed me from the inane strictures of The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White; the question is will that be a good thing.

I am one of those Americans who was detrimentally harmed by a total lack of any explanation of grammar in my elementary and middle school educations. Perhaps, as a result, I had a difficult time following Professor Brooks Landon. Yet, his clear speaking, enthusiastic dialogue and make sense explanations kept me involved, and as a result, I do believe I came away with value.

Secrets of the Iowa Writer's Workshop

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Crafting sentences, until I listened to this lecture series, narrated by the entertaining and engaging Professor Brooks Landon, no longer intimidates me; furthermore, I now actively read with a greater appreciation of the skills demonstrated by our best writers.

What did you like best about this story?

A partial list of goodies: coordinate, subordinate, cumulative sentences, base phrases, first modifiers, second modifiers, third modifiers, left side and right side cumulative sentences in relation to the base phrase (it just goes on and on).

What about Professor Brooks Landon’s performance did you like?

Professor Brooks makes difficult concepts comprehensible, not only because he actually knows what he is talking about, but because his passion energizes you.

What’s an idea from the book that you will remember?

The dot-dash Morse Code approach to reading prose.

Inspiration to think about details of writing

The lecturer departs from what I think of as the traditional to stress usefulness of writing complex sentences he refers to add Master sentences, as one moves from being an apprentice to a master by completing a masterpiece. As a listner I found his listing of many unfamiliar grammatical terms a little off-putting. Still it opens the door for further thought and learning. The PDF that accompanies the audio, as well as the host of other writers and teachers referenced promise to be a rich source for future learning.

Senneces

Great content, I have more patience than others with the long winded examples, but seriously can't listen for long periods and eventually gave up because of the mispronouncing of the word "sentence". At some point it's all I hear and it's awful. Was there no editor or anyone who could have stepped in and done something about this? Having a dialect or accent is one thing, he sounds like he's a Texan or from Tennessee, but if you glaringly mispronounce the word that is central to the content...and also insist on saying it more than necessary... You gotta find another reader. And to anyone who thinks this is an over exaggeration or someone finding something small to complain about - I promise you it's not. Purchase at your own risk.

this was such an eye opener for me

the enthusiasm in the writing and in the narration just made me love writing.. it also made me love humanity once again. this book helped me discover my assets. my greatest asset Was breaking rules. now I'll return to that habit, that asset with a new knoweldge of boundaries and HOW to actually respect them with castrating my writing. although i must say this should be treated as lectures and not as an audiobook for many reasons. PS: that "corps e in the trunk" line makes me smile like nothing else