It's inspired by the Gary Provost quote "This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It's like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with the energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals - sounds that say listen to this, it is important."
a) A paragraph-level analysis to account of sentence length variety
b) A document-level analysis of the same type
c) Suggestions for where sentence length needs to be varied, for example where long sentences should be broken, and so on.
There's a LOT of books with guidelines to improve writing, but it seems like 99% of the tools are only brushing the surface at best.
Sometimes I wish poetry other than rap music was popular. I know no one I can share poems with or equally show me their finds like we do with music and memes. I’m forever sending an mp3 or Spotify link to friends and vice versa.
Nobody ever iMessages a sonnet.