some of the best writing advice Iâve ever received: always put the punch line at the end of the sentence.
it doesnât have to be a âpunch lineâ as in the end of a joke. It could be the part that punches you in the gut. The most exciting, juicy, shocking info goes at the end of the sentence. Two different examples that show the difference it makes:
She saw her brotherâs dead body when she caught the smell of something rotting, thought it was coming from the fridge, and followed it into the kitchen.
Catching the smell of something rotten wafting from the kitchenâprobably from the fridge, she thoughtâshe followed the smell into the kitchen, and saw her brotherâs dead body.
Periods are where you stop to process the sentence. Put the dead body at the start of the sentence and by the time you reach the end of the sentence, youâve piled a whole kitchen and a weird fridge smell on top of it, and THEN you have to process the body, and itâs buried so much it barely has an impact. Put the dead body at the end, and itâs like an emotional exclamation point. Everythingâs normal and then BAM, her brotherâs dead.
This rule doesnât just apply to sentences: structuring lists or paragraphs like this, by putting the important info at the end, increases their punch too. Itâs why in tropes like Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking or Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick, the odd item out comes at the end of the list.
Subverting this rule can also be used to manipulate readerâs emotional reactions or tell them how shocking they SHOULD find a piece of information in the context of a story. For example, a more conventional sentence that follows this rule:
She opened the pantry door, looking for a jar of grape jelly, but the view of the shelves was blocked by a ghost.
Oh! Thereâs a ghost! Thatâs shocking! Probably the character in our sentence doesnât even care about the jelly anymore because the spirit of a dead person has suddenly appeared inside her pantry, and thatâs obviously a much higher priority. But, subvert the rule:
She opened the pantry door, found a ghost blocking her view of the shelves, and couldnât see past it to where the grape jelly was supposed to be.
Because the ghost is in the middle of the sentence, itâs presented like itâs a mere shelf-blocking pest, and thus less important than the REAL goal of this sentence: the grape jelly. The ghost is diminished, and now you get the impression that the character is probably not too surprised by ghosts in her pantry. Maybe it lives there. Maybe she sees a dozen ghosts a day. In any case, itâs not a big deal. Even though both sentences convey the exact same information, they set up the reader to regard the presence of ghosts very differently in this story.
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