How to improve your sentences: before-and-after fixes

To improve your sentences, change how they say things, not what they say. Swap weak verbs and their helpers for one exact verb, cut the filler words that delay the point, end each sentence on the word that matters most, and vary sentence length so the rhythm follows the moment. Keep every fact, every event and every “always” or “never” exactly as it was.

That last part matters most: a rewrite that quietly changes what happened is not an improvement. It’s a different story.

What makes a sentence flat?

A flat sentence is usually doing its job and nothing more. Here is one, from a wet October evening in a harbour city:

Lisa was standing outside of the café and she was starting to get the feeling that something was wrong, because Tom was always on time.

Nothing in it is false. But the verb is propped up by “was” and “-ing”, the point arrives late and wrapped in “starting to get the feeling”, and the most important fact, that Tom is always on time, trails off the end as an explanation. The fixes below take it apart one habit at a time.

How do you rewrite a sentence step by step?

Work through these in order. Each one is small, and most sentences need only two or three of them.

1. Write down what the sentence must keep. Before changing anything, list its facts and its judgements. Here: Lisa is outside the café; she senses something is wrong; Tom is always on time. That list is your contract. Everything else is up for grabs.
2. Find the real verb. Look for “was” plus an “-ing” word, “started to”, “began to”, “made a decision to”. The action is usually hiding inside them.
3. Cut the filler. “Outside of” is “outside”. “Starting to get the feeling that” is a long way of saying she felt it.
4. Move the important word to the end. The end of a sentence is where a reader’s attention lands. Put the fact that matters there.
5. Split or join for rhythm. Read the result aloud with the sentences around it, and change the length if everything is the same shape.
6. Check the contract. Read your list again. If any fact went missing, or “always” became “usually”, put it back.

Applied to the sentence above:

Lisa waited outside the café. Something was wrong. Tom was always on time.

Twenty-five words became thirteen. Every fact survived, “always” included. The point now lands three times, in three short beats, and the last one is the reason for the other two.

How do you fix weak verbs?

A weak verb is not a short one. “Said”, “went” and “looked” are fine. A weak verb is one that needs help to do its job: an auxiliary, an adverb, or a noun that has swallowed the action.

Before: Tom made his way slowly across the depot yard. After: Tom crossed the depot yard. Or, if the slowness matters, Tom trudged across the depot yard.

Before: She gave the door a push. After: She pushed the door.

Before: Lisa was looking at her watch. After: Lisa looked at her watch. Keep “was looking” only when the looking is interrupted: Lisa was looking at her watch when the shutter came down.

The test is simple. Underline every verb in a paragraph. Wherever two or three words share one action, ask whether a single verb can carry it. Don’t reach for an unusual verb to sound literary: “she ambulated” is weaker than “she walked”, because the reader stops to look at it.

Which filler words should you cut?

Filler is any word the sentence means just as well without. The usual suspects:

• “Started to” / “began to”, unless the action really is interrupted. She began to run → she ran.
• “Very”, “really”, “just”, “quite”. It was very cold → it was cold, or find the detail that shows how cold.
• Filter verbs: “she saw”, “she heard”, “she felt”, “she noticed”. She heard the bus pull away → the bus pulled away. The reader is already in her head.
• “The fact that”, “in order to”, “outside of”. Three words where one or none will do.
• “There was” / “it was” openings. There was a light on in the café → a light was on in the café.

Cut filler one word at a time, and read the sentence after each cut. Sometimes “just” is the voice: Tom just stood there says something Tom stood there doesn’t. Filler is what you remove when it adds nothing, not a list of banned words.

How do you improve sentence rhythm and flow?

Rhythm is mostly length. A paragraph where every sentence is medium-long reads like a list, however good the words are:

The bus was late again and Lisa stood at the stop for twenty minutes. The rain came in off the harbour and soaked the shoulders of her coat. She thought about calling Tom but decided that he was probably still at work.

Vary the length and the same facts start to move:

The bus was late again. Lisa stood at the stop for twenty minutes while the rain came in off the harbour and soaked the shoulders of her coat. She thought about calling Tom. He was probably still at work.

A short sentence after a long one carries weight. A long sentence after short ones carries the reader along. Use short sentences for the moments you want felt, and longer ones for movement and atmosphere.

Flow is the other half: each sentence should pick up where the last one left off. If a sentence ends on “the rain”, the next one is easier to follow when it starts near the rain, not on something new. When a paragraph feels choppy, reorder before you reword.

How does word order change a sentence?

The same words in a different order make a different sentence. The end is the loudest position, the beginning the second loudest, and the middle the quietest.

Before: Tom never came, even though she waited until the café closed. After: She waited until the café closed. Tom never came.

The first version spends its ending on the waiting. The second ends on the fact that matters. Nothing was added or removed; only the order changed.

Openings work the same way. Behind her, the shutter came down puts the reader at Lisa’s back first; the shutter came down behind her leads with the shutter. Choose by where the reader’s attention should be.

How do you keep your meaning when you rewrite?

This is where most rewrites go wrong, and it’s why step one is a list. Watch for these slips:

• Softened judgements. “Tom was always on time” becomes “Tom was usually punctual”. Now his lateness is less alarming, and the scene has changed.
• Promoted adverbs into facts. “She waited” becomes “she waited anxiously”, and now the sentence decides how Lisa feels.
• Invented detail. “She waited outside the café” becomes “she waited under the café’s dripping awning”, and now there is an awning nobody planned.
• Lost dialogue. A line someone said gets paraphrased into narration.

If the scene needs more detail, that’s a different job, covered in how to add detail to your writing. If it needs a richer picture of the place, see how to describe a scene. A rewrite changes the delivery. The test: a reader should be able to swap your new version in without anything before or after it breaking.

Rewriting a sentence in ProseSpun

ProseSpun, a fiction writing app for writers with more story than sentences, has a tool for exactly this job. You select a passage you wrote and choose Rewrite from the row that opens above it, beside Describe and Dialogue.

Rewrite is told to change tone and pacing only. Every event, every fact and every line of dialogue must survive. It keeps the judgements and comparisons your passage makes (“always”, “the worst”, “never”, “only”), and it adds nothing about the scene that you didn’t write: not who is where, not what anyone holds, sees or feels. It tightens where the passage sags. That is the contract from step one, applied every time.

What comes back is a proposal under your passage, not a change. You can see it with the changes marked (removed words struck, added words underlined) or as a clean copy you can edit before you take it. The foot gives the size, such as “25 → 13 words · 12 removed”, and you Accept, Discard or Try again.

If a rewrite comes back much longer or shorter than what you selected, it says so before you take it, in a line like “This replaces 4 words of yours with 46”, and the button itself reads Replace 4 words with 46. A rewrite that grows tenfold is rarely a better sentence, so you decide that on purpose. If you wanted the moment filled in rather than reworded, Describe is the tool that keeps your sentences word for word and writes around them.

All three tools read the same Setting and cards, so a rewrite of a line about Tom knows he is never late. More on how that works in a novel is bigger than any model’s memory.

Related reading: How to write dialogue and How to start writing a story (even if you’re not a writer).

Frequently asked questions

How can I make my sentences more interesting?

Use one exact verb instead of a verb with helpers, cut words that delay the point, and end each sentence on the word that matters. Then vary length: a short sentence after a long one gives the reader a beat to feel something. Interesting rarely means longer.

What is sentence variety, and why does it matter?

Sentence variety means mixing sentence lengths and shapes: short and long, simple and compound, some opening on the subject and some on a time or place. Without it, prose falls into a single rhythm that reads as monotonous even when every sentence is fine on its own.

How do I make my writing flow better?

Let each sentence start near where the last one ended, so the reader never has to jump. Then read the paragraph aloud and listen for runs of sentences with the same length or the same opening word. Reordering usually fixes flow faster than rewording.

Should I rewrite every sentence in my first draft?

No. Many plain sentences are doing exactly their job, and some are the spine of the paragraph. Rewrite the ones that sag, bury their point or repeat the rhythm around them, and leave the rest alone.

Have a sentence that won’t sit right? Bring it to ProseSpun, try a rewrite, and keep it only if it reads better.