Here’s the truth. I don’t know.
That’s not entirely true. I know some of the things. I taught literature and writing for eleven years. I should know a few things. But I know what makes a poor sentence (like “How to write good.”) and I know the principles of rhetoric (fancy word for the art of persuasion). But to write a sentence that makes a person smile and her eyes light up or makes someone cry, hitting right in the bullseye of the soul, that I can’t give a formula for.
But it’s not magic. I always want to be clear about that.
That’s not entirely true. It’s a little bit of magic. But the only way I know how to write strong sentence is to read good sentences and to write a ridiculous amount of bad sentences. This isn’t anything insightful. I know it’s been said about three thousand times before. And still it’s a bit of a mystery, isn’t it. You write hundreds, maybe thousands of bad sentences and then, pushing yourself to find a vivacious verb and a handful of gritty nouns, you make a sentence that causes you to sit back and sigh. It’s a keeper.
But you aren’t suddenly cured. You’re still going to write ridiculously bad sentences. I’m sure most of these sentences are bad, and that’s ok. No one can hit home runs every time up at bat (You like how many metaphors I’ve worked into this short space?).
So if you want to write well, don’t. Read well and then write poorly. Just keep writing. And with writing and rewriting and fumbling around for quite a while, you may find yourself writing the kind of sentences, the kind of paragraphs, the kind of essays, and the kind of poetry you want to write some day.