Copy
View this email in your browser
To help celebrate Halloween, we thought we'd switch things up this month by imagining the sentences various horror-movie villains might pick. 

Enjoy! 

—The Good Sentences Team
1. Essay: The Science of Fright by Arash Javanbakht and Linda Saab (2017)

Favorite Sentence: "Fear creates distraction, which can be a positive experience."

—Picked by Freddy Krueger, the metal-clawed star of the Nightmare on Elm Street series 


2. Fiction: The Clown by Mark Meyer (2018)

Favorite Sentence: "The clown counted his murders as he drove the new couple to the house on Rocking Horse Lane."

—Picked by Pennywise, the killer clown dreamed up by Stephen King  


3. Poetry: Windigo by Louise Erdich (1984)

Favorite Sentence: "I stole you off, a huge thing bristling in my armor."

—Picked by Jason, the hockey-mask wearing focus of the Friday the 13th series
 
Michigan Sentences: Here's an article about a study done by some University of Michigan researchers on the potential long-term effects of watching scary movies as a kid.
Syllabus Sentences: Here is the introduction to a book I created for students who find commas, semicolons, and other punctuation marks a bit, well, scary.
Book Recommendations
  • For good sentences about the author of Frankenstein
  • For good sentences about the author of Dracula 
  • For good sentences about the director of The Shining
Nuance Flashback:
"Not Without"
 
Here's one of the most popular horror writers in the English language, Clive Barker, using the Notes on Nuance move we featured exactly two years ago, in the October 2021 edition of "Good Sentences": "not without."

The move offers a stylishly indirect way into a sentence.

"The period was not without its surprises."
              —Clive Barker, The Damnation Game (1998)
 
Additional Resources
                                              
Online Courses

Good with Words: Speaking and Presenting
Good with Words: Writing and Editing
Books   

Good with Words: Speaking and Presenting
Good with Words: Writing and Editing  
Notes on Nuance
Punctuation and Persuasion (New Release)                                                    
The Syntax of Sports: Class 1 
The Syntax of Sports: Class 2
The Syntax of Sports: Class 3 
The Syntax of Sports: Class 4
Scary Sentences
The Scariest Lines from Literature by Bookishly (2019)
 
You can find archived editions as well as a sign-up sheet to subscribe here.

Copyright © Patrick Barry, All rights reserved.


Our mailing address is:
barrypj@umich.edu

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.