Varying Sentence Openings
Sometimes your writing is uninteresting simply because you begin several sentences in the same way:
Mrs. Mallard locked herself in her room when she heard the bad news. She could feel something boiling inside of her. She felt joy even though her husband had just died.
In this paragraph, the writer begins with three words that refer to Mrs. Mallard. Furthermore, each sentence begins with the subject of an independent clause. Because the writer does not vary the sentence openings, the writing lacks interest. A simple solution is to use knowledge of clauses to vary the sentence openings. Specifically, you can find the adverb clauses at the ends of sentences, and you can move them to the beginnings of the sentences. We just can’t forget to add commas!
First, find the adverb clauses:
Mrs. Mallard locked herself in her room when she heard the bad news. She could feel something boiling inside of her. She felt joy even though her husband had just died.
Then, move them to the beginnings of the sentences:
When she heard the bad news, Mrs. Mallard locked herself in her room. She could feel something boiling inside of her. Even though her husband had just died, she felt joy.
In the revised version, the writer starts two sentences with subordinate clauses. The writer also starts all three sentences with very different words. This adds more interest to the writing because there is a variety of sentence openings.