Add Spark to Your Writing With These 3 Simple Tweaks

Clarity is the most important quality of good writing. Writers should master it before anything else.

But, if that’s all your writing is–clear, concise, direct, and to-the-point–it can become stale and boring, causing your readers to lose interest.

Fortunately, there are some easy ways to inject life into your writing. By making some tweaks to your prose, you can significantly enhance your style, while retaining the vital clarity that good writing demands.

The tweaks I’m speaking of are modifiers, and I first learned about them by reading Joseph Williams’ book Style: Toward Clarity and Grace, in which the University of Chicago English professor shares tons of advice that will dramatically improve your writing style.

I read the book for a college prose writing course and the ideas on modifiers are the ones I’ve most taken to heart, the ones that may have most benefited my writing. Williams advocates three types of modifiers:

• Resumptive Modifiers
• Summative Modifiers
• Free Modifiers

Let’s look at each one, with examples of how to use them.

Resumptive Modifiers

Williams says, “To create a resumptive modifier, repeat a key word close to the end of a clause and then resume the line of thought with a relative clause, elaborating on what went before.”

Essentially, this means repeating the key word for emphasis.

Original version:

He finally faced his biggest fear that had plagued him since he joined the team.

Resumptive modifier version:

He finally faced his biggest fear, a fear that had plagued him since he joined the team.

Original version:

The restaurant serves excellent sushi that bursts with flavor.

Resumptive modifier version:

The restaurant serves excellent sushi, sushi that bursts with flavor.

By using commas and repeating words, you can give some rhythm to your sentences, letting your readers take it all in more smoothly.

Summative Modifiers

Williams says, “With a summative modifier, you end a segment of a sentence with a comma, then sum up in a noun or noun phrase what you have just said, and then continue with a relative clause.”

Original version:

He finally faced his biggest fear that had plagued him since he joined the team.

Summative modifier version:

He finally faced his biggest fear, a debilitating obstacle that had plagued him since he joined the team.

Original version:

The restaurant serves excellent sushi that bursts with flavor.

Summative modifier version:

The restaurant serves excellent sushi, a house specialty that bursts with flavor.

The summative modifier is similar to the resumptive modifier, but it allows you to be more descriptive.

Free Modifiers

Williams explains the free modifier: “This modifier follows the verb but comments on its subject. It usually makes more specific what you assert in the preceding clause that you attach it to.”

Original version:

He finally faced his biggest fear that had plagued him since he joined the team. This gave him newfound confidence and enabled him to take top honors.

Free modifier version:

He finally faced his biggest fear that had plagued him since he joined the team, eventually developing newfound confidence and taking top honors.

Original version:

The restaurant, which serves excellent sushi, provides flavor you can’t get anywhere else and makes you want to come back for more.

Free modifier version:

The restaurant serves excellent sushi, providing flavor you can’t get anywhere else and making you want to come back for more.

Using Them All Together

Be wise about how you do this–doing it just enough to imbue life into your writing–but sometimes you can mix and match these and really ramp up your writing.

Original version:

He finally faced his biggest fear that had plagued him since he joined the team. This gave him newfound confidence and enabled him to take top honors.

Combined modifier version:

He finally faced his biggest fear (a debilitating obstacle that had plagued him since he joined the team), developing newfound confidence and taking top honors.

Original version:

The restaurant serves excellent sushi and provides flavor you can’t get anywhere else. It makes you want to come back for more.

Combined modifier version:

The restaurant serves excellent sushi, a house specialty bursting with flavor, a flavor so unique it makes you want to come back for more.

Again, be sparing when you start combining these types of modifiers, as they can sometimes create very long sentences, confusing your readers.

But, certainly, use each of these modifiers by themselves with regularity, as they can add life, rhythm, and flow to your writing, breaking up the monotony of all those simple, clear, and direct sentences we’re always advocating, sentences that can dull down your writing if you let them.