A bright star

Look up the word “sen­tence” in the Oxford Unabridged Dic­tio­nary, and you might be sur­prised (as I was) how, over the years, the word has been used, and the his­tor­i­cal range and com­plex­i­ty of its var­i­ous mean­ings has changed.

That said, the def­i­n­i­tion that inter­est­ed me the most was “Sen­tence: The thought or mean­ing expressed, as dis­tin­guished from the word­ing; the sense, sub­stance, or gist (of a pas­sage, a book, etc.).” What struck me here was that fol­low­ing this def­i­n­i­tion, came the let­ters, “Obs.” That is to say, this usage is con­sid­ered obso­lete. Yet I sus­pect it is this mean­ing good writ­ers have in mind when she/he writes a sen­tence: that is, a sentence—at its best—expresses some­thing beyond the words them­selves. It con­sti­tutes the clas­sic, “Show, don’t tell” ide­al. It may be a bit of dia­logue. It may be a line of detail, or some brief expo­si­tion. Beyond all else, It reveals thought or mean­ing, as dis­tin­guished from the wording. 

We tend—as writers—to focus on plot, ideas, con­flict, etc. The sen­tence is, I think, worth much thought and time. Think of a good sen­tence as a bright star in the sky of your writ­ing. It does not just stand out; it is what makes lit­er­a­ture shine.