The Brute Simplicity of S-V.

S-V.

Pattern #19 in Ann Longknife and K.D. Sullivan's Art of Styling Sentences

Pages: 103-07.

Subject - Verb is the essential building block of all sentence structure, simply because a Subject and Verb is all that you need to craft a sentence.

On that note, the shortest sentence in the English language, one presumes, is "I am." That's a pretty intense sentence, because essentially, you are announcing to the world that you exist, in paper and in real life.

My main point for today's blog is that you can achieve greater efficiency in your assignments when you really choose THE MOST EFFECTIVE SUBJECT and pair it with the MOST EFFECTIVE VERB.

Sometimes, writers don't always pair these together rather well, as in the following example: "This sucks." "This" is a vague, demonstrative pronoun, which makes the reader really wonder what the subject is referring—"He sucks" is better, but we don't especially know who the male subject is, either. "Sucks" is too slangy and also provides a vague sense of the subject—why does he suck? What are the conditions for his suckiness?

If sentence structuring were similar to music, SV would be the bass thump at a techno-house club: SV. SV. SV. SV. SV. SV. SV. SV.

The SV pattern is effective in making short, dramatic pauses and bass thumps.


The Spartans firmly planted their spears in the ground, firmly jutting their death-shears into the sand, calmly awaiting the sea of the Persian flanks to crush down upon them. The Immortals shrieked.

"The Immortals shrieked" would be a 'bass-thumpin' example of how to create a short, clipped sentence after a relatively longer one.

Your textbook also has a famous sentence, taken directly from the Bible: "Jesus wept."

This sentence is indeed a provocative one; after all, if one truly believes in the existence of a triumvirate God, then this act itself is God weeping for Lazarus—essentially, God is weeping for most of humanity. The power of the short simple sentence is that it has the power to FORCE the reader to critically expand their knowledge of the subtext behind the sentence.

Simpler, other samples: Wired, Very Short Stories.

My gassy uncle farted.

One of my favorites: "Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time"
- Alan Moore

Clones cloned clones.

"There, there, they're there," said the nanny.

Samurai eviscerate. Ninja evade. Shoguns crush. Farmers weep.

I drank; I puked; I regretted.

The madness festered—the insane asylum erupted into chaos.

Words madden, then inspire.