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🤖 Free Paragraph Generator (AI-Powered)

Writing can be a struggle. Blank pages and writer's block hamper productivity. An AI-powered paragraph generator eliminates those issues. By providing relevant, well-structured paragraphs on demand, it enables smooth, continuous writing. The created text acts as inspiration, saving time and frustration. AI generator is an invaluable aid for any writing project.

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Crafting a compelling paragraph can sometimes feel like a puzzle, where the pieces don’t quite fit. You know what you want to say, but the words just won't come together. This is where an AI-powered paragraph generator can make a difference. Imagine having a tool that helps you organise your thoughts and phrases seamlessly. It takes your ideas and transforms them into coherent, engaging paragraphs with ease. Whether you’re a student facing a tight deadline, a content creator in need of inspiration, or simply looking to enhance your writing skills, an AI-powered paragraph generator can be your secret weapon.

What is a Paragraph?

A paragraph is a collection of sentences that centre around a single idea. It acts as a fundamental unit in writing. To craft a compelling paragraph, start with a strong topic sentence. This sentence introduces the main idea, guiding the reader on what to expect.

For example, if you're writing about the benefits of exercise, your topic sentence might be: "Regular exercise boosts both physical and mental health."

Next, add supporting details. These sentences should offer evidence or explanations that back up your main idea. For example, you could mention how exercise improves cardiovascular health, reduces stress, and enhances mood.

Exercise improves cardiovascular health by strengthening the heart and reducing blood pressure.

It reduces stress by promoting the release of endorphins, the body's natural mood lifters.

Regular physical activity can also improve sleep quality and increase energy levels.

To keep your paragraph coherent, use transition words like "also," "in addition," and "furthermore" to link your sentences smoothly. This helps the reader follow your train of thought effortlessly.

Finally, wrap up your paragraph with a concluding sentence that reinforces your main idea. For instance, "Incorporating regular exercise into your routine can lead to significant health benefits."

Elements of a Well-Written Paragraph

Crafting a paragraph begins with a clear topic sentence. This sets the stage for what's to come. Next, add supporting sentences. These should provide evidence and details, always linking back to the main idea. Finally, conclude with a sentence that reinforces your point.

Topic Sentence

When writing a well-crafted paragraph, begin with a strong topic sentence that clearly defines the main idea. This sentence sets the tone and guides the rest of the paragraph, informing the reader of your focus. To make it effective:

Keep it specific and clear.

Ensure it directly relates to your central argument.

For example, if you're discussing the benefits of remote work, your topic sentence might be: "Remote work offers numerous advantages for both employees and employers." This keeps the reader engaged and sets a clear direction for the rest of the paragraph.

Definition and Role

Crafting a solid paragraph starts with a clear and compelling topic sentence that anchors your main idea and aligns with your essay's thesis. Here are some steps and tips to help:

• Start Strong : Begin with a topic sentence that sets the stage for what the paragraph will discuss.
• Stay Focused : Stick to one idea per paragraph to maintain clarity.
• Use Examples : Illustrate your points with relevant examples that are easy to understand.
• Keep it Simple : Break down complex ideas into smaller, digestible pieces.
• Avoid Pitfalls : Steer clear of common mistakes like run-on sentences and vague statements.

Refining your paragraphs enhances both coherence and readability, making your content more engaging.

How to Craft an Effective Topic Sentence

Crafting a strong topic sentence is key. It sets the tone and direction for your paragraph. To make your writing clear, ensure your topic sentence is both specific and straightforward.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Be Clear and Specific: Make sure your topic sentence directly relates to your main point.
• Use Tools Wisely: Paragraph generators can help brainstorm ideas. However, always ensure your sentence connects to your core argument.
• Keep It Concise: Avoid overly long paragraphs. This keeps your writing sharp and maintains reader interest.

For example, if you're writing about the benefits of remote work, your topic sentence could be, "Remote work boosts productivity by allowing employees to work in a comfortable environment." This sentence sets the stage for a detailed discussion on productivity and comfort.

Supporting Sentences

Crafting strong supporting sentences can transform your paragraph into a powerhouse of clarity and focus. Start by giving concrete examples that align with your main idea. Each sentence should flow into the next, maintaining a coherent thread throughout.

Here's how to do it:

• Use clear, relatable examples to illustrate your points.
• Keep your sentences short and to the point.
• Make sure each detail logically connects to the next.

For instance, if your topic sentence talks about the importance of time management , follow it with examples like setting specific goals, using planners, or prioritising tasks. This will not only support your main idea but also keep your reader engaged.

Providing Evidence and Examples

Adding evidence and examples to your writing makes your argument stronger and more convincing. Here's how you can do it:

• Cite Sources - Always reference quotes, statistics, or expert opinions. This gives your argument credibility. For example, if you're discussing climate change, mention a study from a reputable journal.
• Describe in Detail - Provide context and clarity to your examples. Instead of just saying "Studies show," explain what the study was about, who conducted it, and what the key findings were.
• Analyse Evidence - Don't just present the evidence; explain how it supports your main point. If you cite a statistic about rising sea levels, discuss what this means for coastal communities.

Using these steps, your writing will be more credible and engaging.

Maintaining Coherence and Flow

Supporting sentences are the backbone of your paragraph. They reinforce the main idea introduced by the topic sentence. Use evidence, examples, or explanations to back up your main idea. Each supporting sentence should relate directly to the topic sentence.

To keep your ideas connected, use linking words. Ensure your sentences are relevant and logically organised. This will improve clarity and persuasiveness.

For instance, if your topic sentence is about the benefits of remote work, your supporting sentences could include:

• Statistics showing increased productivity.
• Examples of companies successfully implementing remote work.
• Testimonials from employees enjoying a better work-life balance.

Concluding Sentence

When crafting a concluding sentence, it's key to rephrase the main idea of your paragraph to keep it fresh and impactful. This final line should also pave the way smoothly to the next paragraph, maintaining a steady flow in your writing. By summarising your main points and wrapping up neatly, you leave a lasting impression on your reader.

Summarising the Main Idea

A strong concluding sentence ties all your points together and reinforces the main idea of your paragraph. Here's how you can do it:

• Summarise Main Points : Highlight your key arguments without adding new information.
• Ensure Clarity : Make sure the reader understands the paragraph's purpose.
• Leave a Lasting Impression : Craft a memorable final sentence to reinforce your message.

Transitioning to the Next Paragraph

To tie up your paragraph neatly and guide your reader to the next one, focus on summarising your key points. Reiterate the main idea using different words, providing a sense of closure. This reinforces your topic sentence and thesis, ensuring the reader is ready for the next section. Avoid introducing new information at this stage; just wrap things up smoothly and set the stage for what's coming next.

Steps to Write a Paragraph

Writing a strong paragraph starts with planning your ideas. Think about what you want to say and how to organise it.

Next, focus on crafting a clear topic sentence. This will be the backbone of your paragraph. Support this sentence with evidence or examples that are easy to understand.

Once you've written your paragraph, take the time to revise it. Check for clarity and coherence. Make adjustments to ensure it flows smoothly and delivers your message effectively.

Here's a simple example to make it clear. Imagine you're explaining why a balanced diet is important. Your topic sentence could be, "A balanced diet is crucial for maintaining good health." Follow this with supporting details like the benefits of various nutrients. Finally, revise to make sure your paragraph is easy to follow and engaging for the reader.

Planning Your Paragraph

Start by nailing down the main idea you want your paragraph to express. Once you have that, jot down clear and logical supporting points. This keeps your paragraph sharp and on-message.

Here's a simple example: If your main idea is that "Regular exercise boosts mental health," your supporting points might include:

• Exercise reduces stress.
• Physical activity improves mood.
• Regular workouts can enhance sleep quality.

This structure ensures your paragraph flows smoothly and stays focused on delivering your message effectively.

Identifying the Main Idea

Getting to the heart of your paragraph starts with knowing your audience and why you're writing. Here's how to nail the main idea:

• Think about who will read it : Understand your audience's needs and interests.
• Set your goal : Are you informing, persuading, or entertaining?
• Gather relevant info : Do your research and brainstorm ideas.

Following these steps ensures your main idea is clear and effectively communicated.

Outlining Supporting Points

To craft a compelling piece, start by identifying three to four key points that will support your central idea and resonate with your readers. Structure these points in a logical sequence to ensure a smooth flow of thoughts. Use keywords and research to gather pertinent information. Make sure each point directly backs up your main topic. Review your work for coherence and connections to enhance the overall quality of your writing.

• Identify Key Points: Choose three to four main ideas Ensure they resonate with your audience
• Logical Sequence: Arrange points in a logical flow Maintain a smooth transition between ideas

Research and Keywords:

• Gather relevant information
• Use keywords effectively
• Direct Support: Each point should back up the main topic Ensure relevance and direct connection
• Review for Coherence: Check for logical connections Improve clarity and overall quality

Writing the Paragraph

Crafting a solid paragraph begins with a clear topic sentence that lays out the main idea. Follow this with supporting sentences that add evidence and details. Wrap it up with a concluding sentence that reinforces the main point and ties everything together.

Let's break it down:

• Start Strong : Your topic sentence should introduce the main idea.
• Add Support : Use supporting sentences to provide evidence or examples. They help clarify and strengthen your point.
• Conclude Well : A concluding sentence should reinforce your main idea and bring the paragraph to a close.

For example, if you're writing about the importance of exercise, start with a sentence like, "Regular exercise is essential for maintaining good health." Follow it with supporting details such as, "It helps in weight management, boosts mental health, and improves cardiovascular function." Conclude with, "Incorporating exercise into your daily routine can lead to a healthier and happier life."

Starting with a Strong Topic Sentence

A powerful topic sentence sets the tone for your entire paragraph, helping readers understand the main idea right away. Here's how to nail it:

• State the main idea clearly and briefly.
• Back up your thesis or claim.
• Use connecting words to link to the supporting details.

For instance, if you're writing about the benefits of remote work, start with a sentence like, "Remote work offers flexibility that traditional office jobs can't match."

Developing Supporting Sentences

Using relevant examples, evidence, and explanations can make your paragraph truly impactful. Smooth connections between ideas are key. Develop each supporting sentence with specific details, data, or facts, ensuring they link back to your main point. Each sentence should build towards your paragraph's overall goal, maintaining coherence and strengthening your argument. This method brings clarity and effectiveness.

• Use linking words to connect your ideas.
• Provide specific examples and data.
• Ensure each sentence ties back to your main idea.
• Keep your writing clear and focused.

For instance, if you're discussing the benefits of a healthy diet, use statistics and personal anecdotes to support your claims. This way, your paragraph remains engaging and informative, guiding the reader through your argument seamlessly.

Ending with a Concluding Sentence

Your paragraph needs a strong concluding sentence to feel complete and leave a lasting impression. Here's how you can craft one effectively:

• Restate your main idea using different words.
• Summarise the key points without adding new information.
• Provide closure to your readers.

This final sentence ties your supporting details and main idea together, giving your paragraph a polished finish.

Revising Your Paragraph

Revising a paragraph can feel overwhelming, but breaking it down into manageable steps makes the process smoother. Start by ensuring your ideas are clear and logically arranged. This helps your readers follow your thoughts without confusion. Next, check your grammar and punctuation. Correct usage makes your writing polished and professional. Finally, scrutinize each sentence. Make sure every single one supports your main point without adding fluff.

Here's a simple checklist to help:

• Ensure clarity and logical flow
• Check grammar and punctuation
• Confirm each sentence is relevant

Checking for Clarity and Coherence

To ensure your paragraph shines with clarity and coherence, start by making sure every sentence backs up your main idea. Check how smoothly the ideas flow and how well the sentences connect. Follow these three steps:

• Align all details with the main idea.
• Cut out any repetitive or off-topic details.
• Adjust for a logical and smooth sequence of thoughts.
• This method will sharpen your writing.

Ensuring Proper Grammar and Punctuation

Ensuring proper grammar and punctuation in your writing is essential to maintain clarity and professionalism. Focus on the following key points to polish your paragraphs:

• Subject-Verb Agreement : Ensure that your subjects and verbs match in number (singular or plural).
• Punctuation : Use commas, periods, apostrophes, semicolons, and colons correctly.
• Consistency : Maintain consistent verb tense throughout your writing.
• Spelling and Word Usage : Check for correct spelling and appropriate word choice.
• Proofreading : Carefully review your work to catch any errors before finalising.

Using an AI-Powered Paragraph Generator

Harnessing an AI-powered paragraph generator can reshape your writing process, making it faster and more streamlined. By understanding what this tool does and why it's beneficial, you'll find your writing skills improve significantly. Let's break this down to see how it can enhance your writing.

What is a Paragraph Generator?

A paragraph generator is a sophisticated software application that utilises artificial intelligence to produce coherent and contextually relevant paragraphs. By analyswing the inputs provided by the user, the generator can craft text that fits the specified requirements. This technology leverages advanced natural language processing (NLP) algorithms to ensure that the generated content is not only grammatically correct but also semantically meaningful.

How Does a Paragraph Generator Work?

1. User Inputs

The process begins with the user providing detailed inputs. These typically include:

• Topic : The subject matter or main idea of the paragraph.
• Tone : The desired style or mood of the text, such as formal, informal, persuasive, or informative.

2. Input Analysis

Once the inputs are received, the paragraph generator's AI engine analyses them. This involves:

• Keyword Identification : Extracting key terms and phrases from the provided topic.
• Tone Recognition : Understanding the desired tone through linguistic markers and context.

3. Content Generation

Using the analysed inputs, the AI generates a paragraph through the following steps:

• Contextual Understanding : The AI creates a contextual framework based on the topic. It determines the relevant information and logical flow required to construct the paragraph.
• Sentence Construction : The tool formulates sentences that are coherent and aligned with the specified tone. It ensures that each sentence contributes to the overall topic and maintains the intended style.
• Coherence and Cohesion : The AI ensures that the paragraph is logically structured, with smooth transitions between sentences to maintain readability and engagement.

Benefits of Using a Paragraph Generator

Using a paragraph generator can offer numerous benefits, especially for individuals who frequently engage in writing tasks. Here’s a detailed look at why you might consider using a paragraph generator:

• Time Efficiency:  Writing a well-structured paragraph can be time-consuming. A paragraph generator speeds up this process by quickly producing text that meets your requirements. This allows you to focus more on other critical aspects of your work, such as research or editing.
• Consistency and Quality:  Maintaining a consistent tone and style across multiple paragraphs or documents can be challenging. Paragraph generators help ensure that your content remains uniform in tone and style, enhancing overall readability and professionalism.
• Overcoming Writer’s Block:  Writer’s block can be a significant hurdle, making it difficult to start or continue writing. A paragraph generator can provide the initial push you need by generating a starting point or even complete sections, helping you overcome creative roadblocks.
• E nhanced Creativity:  These tools can offer new perspectives and ideas that you might not have considered. By analysing your inputs, paragraph generators can present creative ways to approach a topic, which can inspire and expand your own writing.
• Im proved Grammar and Syntax:  Paragraph generators typically include built-in grammar and syntax checking features. This ensures that the generated content is free from grammatical errors, awkward phrasing, and other common writing issues, leading to cleaner and more polished text.

Steps to Use the Paragraph Generator

Using a paragraph generator is a straightforward process that involves a few simple steps. By following these steps, you can quickly generate well-crafted paragraphs tailored to your specific needs.

1. What is the Paragraph About?

The first step is to clearly define the topic of your paragraph. This input helps the generator understand the subject matter and ensures that the generated content is relevant. Here's how to do it:

• Identify Your Topic : Think about the main idea or subject you want to write about. This could be anything from a product description, an overview of a research topic, or a summary of a current event.
• Enter the Topic : Input the topic into the designated field in the paragraph generator interface. Be as specific as possible to help the AI produce a more focused and accurate paragraph.

2. Select a Tone

Next, choose the desired tone for your paragraph. The tone determines the style and mood of the writing, making it suitable for different contexts and audiences. Common tones include:

• Formal : Professional and objective, suitable for academic or business writing.
• Informal : Casual and conversational, ideal for blogs or social media posts.
• Persuasive : Convincing and compelling, perfect for marketing or advertising content.
• Informative : Neutral and factual, great for instructional or educational material.

Select the appropriate tone from the available options in the generator.

3. Click on Generate

After entering the topic and selecting the tone, you’re ready to generate your paragraph. Here’s what to do:

• Review Your Inputs : Double-check the topic and tone to ensure they accurately reflect what you want.
• Generate the Paragraph : Click the "Generate" button. The AI will process your inputs and create a paragraph that aligns with your specifications.
• Review and Edit : Once the paragraph is generated, review it for accuracy and relevance. Make any necessary edits to ensure it perfectly fits your needs.

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Paragraph Writing

Writing a compelling paragraph isn't just about filling up space. It's about creating a smooth, engaging flow of ideas. Here are some common pitfalls to watch out for and how to avoid them:

Overly Long Paragraphs

Long paragraphs can easily overwhelm readers and obscure the main point you're trying to make. To keep your writing clear and engaging, it's crucial to keep paragraphs concise and break up longer ones. Consider these tips:

• Keep it Short: Aim for 3-5 sentences per paragraph.
• One Idea per Paragraph: Change paragraphs when you introduce a new idea or point.
• Use Lists: Bullet points or numbered lists can help break up text and highlight key points.
• Examples Help: Use simple examples to explain complex ideas.

Keeping Paragraphs Concise

Long paragraphs can overwhelm readers, causing them to lose focus and miss the main point. To keep your paragraphs concise:

• Stick to one main idea : Ensure each paragraph addresses a single point.
• Use short, clear sentences : Avoid unnecessary words.
• Revise rigorously : Trim any repetitive or irrelevant information.

Breaking Up Long Paragraphs

Splitting up lengthy paragraphs can transform your content from a wall of text into an engaging read. Long paragraphs often overwhelm readers, causing them to miss essential points. By breaking them into shorter sections, you keep your audience focused and interested. Aim for concise yet thorough paragraphs. This ensures your message is clear and helps maintain your reader's attention.

Consider these tips:

 - Keep it short: Stick to 3-4 sentences per paragraph.

- One idea per paragraph: Change paragraphs when you shift arguments.

- Use lists and bullet points: They make information easier to digest.

For example, imagine you're explaining a complex topic like digital marketing strategies. Instead of one long paragraph, break it into smaller chunks. Discuss social media tactics in one section, email marketing in another, and SEO separately. This way, your readers can easily follow along and absorb each point without feeling overwhelmed.

Lack of Coherence

Writing a paragraph that flows well is like having a conversation that doesn't get interrupted. Your ideas should connect smoothly, making it easy for the reader to follow along. Use linking words to bridge sentences and keep everything tied to your main point. This way, each sentence will support your argument clearly.

Here's a simple tip: imagine explaining your point to a friend. You wouldn't jump around or leave gaps in your story, right? The same goes for writing. Keep your sentences short and sweet, and if you need to switch ideas, start a new paragraph.

Consider these tips for better coherence:

• Use transition words like "and," "but," "so," and "because" to connect ideas.
• Stick to one main point per paragraph.
• Break long paragraphs into smaller ones for readability.

For example, if you're writing about the benefits of exercise, don't suddenly start talking about nutrition in the same paragraph. Keep it focused, and your readers will stay engaged.

Ensuring Logical Flow

Ensuring your paragraphs flow logically and keep readers engaged is easier than you might think. Here are some key steps to follow:

• Use connecting words : These help ideas flow smoothly, preventing abrupt shifts in thought.
• Keep a clear topic sentence : The topic sentence should align well with your supporting details.
• Maintain consistent structure : Evidence and analysis should clearly link back to your main point.

Avoiding common mistakes will significantly improve coherence and readability.

For example, if you're writing about the benefits of remote work, you might use connecting words like "Additionally" or "Furthermore" to link ideas. Your topic sentence could be something like, "Remote work offers numerous benefits for both employees and employers." Then, you can follow up with evidence and analysis that supports this point, ensuring each paragraph leads naturally into the next.

Avoiding Disjointed Sentences

A common challenge in paragraph writing is keeping sentences connected. Disjointed sentences break the logical flow and confuse the reader. You can solve this by using transition words, maintaining a consistent tone and verb tense, and avoiding unrelated information. Repeating key phrases can also reinforce the main idea.

Here are some issues and their impacts:

• Disjointed Sentences : Leads to confusion and frustration.
• Inconsistent Tone : Causes distraction and disconnect.
• Introducing New Information : Results in overwhelm and irritation.
• Lack of Transitions : Makes the text abrupt and jarring.
• Missing Key Phrases : Weakens emphasis and clarity.

Weak Topic Sentences

When writing a paragraph, the strength of your topic sentence sets the tone. A clear and focused opening guides your reader. Avoid vague statements. Instead, lead with a strong, specific direction.

Follow these tips to craft strong topic sentences:

• Be Specific : State the main idea clearly.
• Stay Relevant : Ensure it ties directly to the paragraph's content.
• Engage Early : Grab attention right from the start.

For example, if you're discussing time management tips for freelancers, start with a statement like, “Effective time management is crucial for freelancers to maintain productivity.”

This simple change can make your writing more engaging and easier to follow.

Crafting Stronger Opening Sentences

Crafting stronger opening sentences ensures your paragraphs are clear and engaging right from the start. Avoid common pitfalls by:

• Expressing the main idea clearly : Your topic sentence should directly connect to your thesis.
• Being specific : Stay focused and avoid vagueness.
• Setting the tone : Guide the reader's understanding and expectations from the beginning.

Avoiding Vague Statements

Crafting strong opening sentences is key to engaging your readers, but it's equally important to steer clear of vague statements that can muddle your message. Weak topic sentences can leave readers confused and unsure of your direction. To ensure clarity and precision, make your topic sentences specific and directly tied to the paragraph's main idea.

This approach not only maintains the flow of your writing but also keeps your audience hooked. Let's look at an example: instead of saying "Many people think exercise is beneficial," you could say "Recent studies show that regular exercise improves mental health." This change makes the statement clearer and more impactful.

Tips for Writing Effective Paragraphs

Writing effective paragraphs is essential for clear and engaging communication. Whether you're writing an essay, a blog post, or a business report, well-structured paragraphs help convey your ideas effectively. Here are some practical tips to ensure your paragraphs are impactful and coherent.

1. Start with a Strong Topic Sentence

The topic sentence sets the stage for the paragraph by introducing the main idea. It should be clear, concise, and directly related to the overall theme of your piece.

• Example : "Regular exercise significantly improves mental health."

2. Develop a Single Idea

Each paragraph should focus on a single idea or point. This helps maintain clarity and prevents the reader from getting confused.

• Stay on Topic : Avoid including unrelated information that can distract from the main idea.
• Use Supporting Sentences : Provide evidence, examples, or explanations that reinforce the topic sentence.

3. Use Clear and Concise Language

Simplicity in language helps readers easily understand your message. Avoid jargon, overly complex words, or lengthy sentences that might obscure your point.

• Simple Vocabulary : Choose words that are easy to understand.
• Short Sentences : Break complex ideas into shorter sentences for better readability.

4. Ensure Logical Flow

A well-organised paragraph has a logical progression of ideas. Transition words and phrases can help guide the reader through your argument or narrative.

• Transitions : Use words like "furthermore," "for example," and "however" to connect ideas smoothly.
• Sequence : Arrange your supporting sentences in a logical order that builds on the topic sentence.

5. Include Relevant Examples and Evidence

Support your main idea with relevant examples, statistics, or quotes. This adds credibility and helps illustrate your point.

• Examples : Provide specific instances that illustrate your point.
• Data : Use statistics or research findings to back up your claims.

6. Maintain Coherence and Cohesion

Ensure that all sentences in the paragraph are related to the main idea and flow naturally from one to the next. Cohesion can be achieved through the consistent use of keywords and phrases.

• Consistent Terminology : Use the same terms and phrases to refer to key concepts throughout the paragraph.
• Repetition and Synonyms : Reiterate important points using different words to enhance understanding without redundancy.

7. End with a Concluding Sentence

A concluding sentence summarises the main idea of the paragraph and provides a transition to the next one. It should reinforce the topic without merely repeating it.

• Example : "Thus, incorporating regular exercise into your routine can lead to substantial mental health benefits."

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Paragraph Expander Free AI-Powered Text Expander to Lengthen Paragraphs

Need to lengthen your paragraphs and increase your word count? I got you. This free paragraph expander uses AI (artificial intelligence) and acts as a text expander that’ll instantly extend your writing to make your paragraph longer, remaining on theme with your content. This text expander’s advanced algorithms produce AI-powered content that fits in seamlessly with your original content—for free.

Hey there! You’ve hit your free limit for an hour . Don’t worry; you’ll be able to use my tools again in an hour.

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Use the Paragraph Expander to Meet Your Word Count Target and Improve Your SEO

A paragraph expander is a great way to create more in-depth content, based on what you’ve already written. If you’re sitting there thinking, “how do I make my paragraph longer?” then you’ve come to the right place. You can start with a single sentence, a short paragraph, or even a phrase, and create extra content.

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to use a paragraph expander:

• You’ve got a short blog post that you want to make longer, for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes—ideally, your blog posts should usually be 1,500+ words .
• You’re working on a school or college assignment and you haven’t quite met the word count requirements.
• You’ve got short-form content, like social media posts, that you want to use as the basis for a full-length article.
• You have a little bit of text that you want to expand and make paragraphs longer throughout your content.

In all these cases, you can copy and paste short sections of content into the paragraph expander and you’ll automatically get a longer, more detailed paragraph.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’ve got a great tweet about email marketing (I created this one using RightBlogger ’s “Tweet/X Post Ideas” feature:

Looking to grow your subscriber list? 📈 Offer an irresistible lead magnet to entice visitors to sign up. It could be an exclusive guide, discount, or free resource! 

You want to write a whole blog post about growing your email subscriber list, and you plan to expand on the lead magnet idea. So you simply copy a couple of sentences into the paragraph extender tool:

Run the tool, and you’ll make your paragraph longer based on those starting 2 sentences. Here’s what it came up with for me:

“Want to boost your subscriber list and attract more visitors to your website? One effective strategy is to create a compelling lead magnet that will encourage them to sign up. Consider offering an exclusive guide packed with valuable insights, a special discount on your products or services, or a free resource that addresses a common pain point for your target audience. By providing something of value in exchange for their email address, you can significantly increase your chances of turning visitors into loyal subscribers.”

Ready to give it a try, yourself and write longer paragraphs?

How to Use the Paragraph Expander to Lengthen Your Original Text

The paragraph expander is really user-friendly—but just in case you want a helping hand, here’s a breakdown of what to do, step by step.

Step 1. Copy and Paste Your Original Sentence or Paragraph

First, you’ll need to choose a sentence (or short paragraph) to expand upon. It’s best to use something that feels a bit thin and underwritten. If you’ve already written a detailed, wordy paragraph, then running it through the tool may not give you such good results.

Once you’ve chosen the text you want to expand, simply copy and paste it into the tool.

Step 2. Select Your Tone and Writing Style

If you’re creating standard blog content, it’s fine to simply use the “Default”  tone & style in the paragraph expander tool. But if you’re writing something different, or your blog has a strong branded voice, then you may want to experiment with different tones and styles.

For instance, the “Fun & Quirky” style is a great fit for brands that are laid back and informal. The “Formal” style is a good fit if you’re working on a piece of academic or business writing.

Step 3. Generate an Extended Paragraph of Text

Once you’ve pasted in your text and (optionally) selected a tone & style, it’s time to generate your extended paragraph. Go ahead and hit the “Generate” button and your new text will appear almost instantly.

Bonus: Use My Free SEO Checklist Along With the Paragraph Expander

There’s a good chance you’re using the paragraph extender to help you produce blog posts that work well for search engines. As you write your blog post , you’ll also want to keep in mind the key principles of good blog SEO .

Here’s my personal step-by-step SEO checklist to use for your blog posts: 

• Make sure you’re using the Yoast plugin for WordPress
• Always optimize your post for a specific, achievable keyword phrase that’s relevant to your audience
• Optimize your post’s subheadings: this encourages Google’s rich snippets and can mean that your post gets indexed faster
• Only use one H1 header in your post (that should be the post title at the top of the page)
• Follow correct header hierarchy, with H2 subsections and H3 sub-subsections
• Make sure you include your primary keyword multiple times—but don’t go overboard (it should sound natural)
• Use both internal and external links in your blog post (with at least 3–5 external links)
• Craft an engaging meta description that includes your primary keyword, plus secondary keywords if possible
• Give each image an alt description, using keywords in the descriptions as appropriate
• Think about your blog post’s length—it should normally be at least 1,500+ words
• Craft a meta title (SEO title) that should work well in search engines
• Include keywords in your post’s permalink (also called the URL or slug)

The Key Features of the Paragraph Expander

We designed the paragraph expander to be super-easy to use—but if you’re curious about some of its key features, just keep reading.

Text (Copy and Paste Your Original Text)

The paragraph expander lets you paste in any text you like. (It doesn’t have to be in English, either.) Your text can be anything from a few words long to a couple of sentences long.

Note: There’s a limit of 500 characters for the tool. If you want to expand more text than that, you can simply run the tool multiple times.

Tone & Writing Style (Choose a Style That Matches Your Voice)

Like my other free AI blogging tools , the paragraph extender lets you select a tone & writing style. This is so the AI algorithm can create text that’s as close to your own writing voice as possible. 

You can use the paragraph expander as often as you like, so feel free to experiment with different styles. For example, bloggers often use styles like “Fun & Quirky”, “Casual”, and “Irreverent”. If you’re working on business or academic content, “Formal” or “Professional” might suit you well. And if you’re crafting a piece of copywriting to promote a product or service, then “Sales-oriented” or “Persuasive” could be perfect for boosting conversions. 

Language (Doesn’t Have to be English)

The paragraph expander doesn’t just work with English. You can use it with a whole range of different languages, including French, Spanish, Chinese, Danish, Polish, Japanese, Italian, and more.

Tip: Your input and output languages don’t need to match—though in most cases, you’ll probably be crafting extended content in the same language that you started out with.

Paragraph Expander Tool FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Got questions about the paragraph extender tool? Here’s everything you need to know.

What type of content can I enter into the paragraph expander tool?

You can give the paragraph extender tool any kind of content you want. That could be an excerpt from a past blog post, part of a draft you’re working on, a couple of brief sentences from an academic essay … or anything you like. For best results, you’ll want to choose content that’s concise and ripe for expanding upon. 

Even if you plan on editing the paragraph extender’s output, you might still find it’s a useful tool for getting past writer’s block.

The paragraph extender draws on the same AI writing technology behind tools like ChatGPT to create a unique sentence expansion of your input text.

Can I use the paragraph expander tool as an AI sentence expander? 

Yes, you can use this tool as a sentence expander too. Simply enter a short sentence and the tool will expand it into one (or more) sentences. 

Here’s an example for the sentence “The sky is blue”:

“The sky, with its vibrant hue, is a mesmerizing shade of blue that captivates the senses and evokes a sense of tranquility.”

Will the content from the paragraph expander tool pass a plagiarism checker?

The paragraph expander tool creates unique AI-generated content, based on your original words. This means it should easily pass a plagiarism check. For peace of mind, you may want to run your text through a plagiarism checker tool before you submit it for assessment or publication.

If you’re expanding a piece of text written by someone else, the expanded content should be sufficiently different to pass a plagiarism check. However, to avoid plagiarism of ideas, it’s important to cite your sources.

How else can I lengthen my writing to meet the required word count?

Using a paragraph extender is a useful quick fix when you’re trying to get your writing up to a certain word length. However, the tool won’t add in fresh ideas, and using it too extensively could make your piece seem overly wordy.

If you need to significantly extend a piece of writing, you might want to think about:

• Are there any key points that you haven’t covered? My free outline generator might help you to come up with these.
• Could you go into more detail by adding extra material, like examples or quotes? (You can include a discussion of these, too.)
• Have you missed out part of your piece, like the introduction or conclusion? I’ve got an introduction writer and conclusion writer to help you create these.
• Is there something more you could offer your target audience? What would make your message resonate with them?

If your writing often comes out too short, you may need to think about length earlier in the writing process. Using blog post templates , for instance, can help you create well-structured posts that meet the word count you’re aiming for.

Is there a Chrome extension for this tool?

For now, you can only use the paragraph expander here, as an online tool. There’s no Chrome extension or downloadable version, though RightBlogger’s Chrome Extension may eventually include this as a feature. I recommend keeping a tab open here with the tool so you can easily copy and paste text from your email, Google docs, Microsoft Word, or anywhere else you write.

Which other AI tools can I use to help create content?

You might want to use the full AI article writer to create a complete piece of content, in less than a minute. I’ve also got a YouTube script generator that you can use to help you make video content, and a whole range of useful blogging tools like the intro paragraph generator .

If you’re looking to change content around rather than expand sentences, the paragraph rewriter makes it easy to rephrase your text. There’s also a full grammar fixer (grammar checker) to help you with editing your writing.

Why did you make this paragraph expander a free tool?

I know, I know… what’s the catch? This paragraph expander is completely free. Here’s why. When I started blogging, years ago, I couldn’t afford to spend much money on my blog. Essential costs like web hosting took up most of my blogging budget. I knew that premium tools would help me grow my blog faster, but I couldn’t afford them. Instead, I hunted for free tools that did similar things—and I was so grateful to the bloggers who create those tools.

Today, my blog RyRob has been hugely successful, thanks in part to those free tools. I wanted to give something back to the blogging community, so I created the free paragraph expander. This tool is my gift to you.

You can use the paragraph expander as many times as you want, completely free. There’s no charge, and you never need to enter your email address, sign up, or jump through any hoops.

If you like the paragraph expander, I’d love it if you’d check out RightBlogger , my AI powerhouse. It’s packed with useful tools to help you with your writing. While it’s aimed primarily at bloggers, there are tools in there that can create and edit all kinds of AI content. That includes a paraphrasing tool, grammar fixer, rewriter, idea generator, and many more.

Who is this paragraph expander tool designed for?

We created the paragraph expander tool with all sorts of people in mind. It’s for bloggers, writers, content marketers, content creators, SEO professionals, small businesses, students, and anyone who sometimes needs a helping hand creating longer pieces of high-quality content.

1 million words — ready to copy and paste (Lorem Ipsum)

What does 1 million words look like.

Here is a 1 million words file using only Lorem Ipsum text :

It is always very hard to conceive very large numbers . Big amounts of time or space are subjective concepts. We don’t use rationality to get around their quantities, instead, we use feeling. We can feel how very tall a building is or how very large a lake can be.

A large quantity of words might be even tougher to surround in one’s mind. Let’s get beside those abstract ideas and let’s try to answer the following question : What does 1 million words really look like?

As a kid I’ve always asked myself how long it would take me to read 1 million words? How thick a book should be to gather all these characters into one single object. In this article I will try answering those childhood questions.

We will be using a Lorem Ipsum base text. Lorem Ipsum is a very famous latin piece of text used by designers as a placeholder text to fill design mockups. If you want to learn more about the origins of Lorem Ipsum you should dig into De finibus bonorum et malorum of Cicero .

Statistics generated by 1’000’000 words text.

The total version of the Lorem Ipsum text is 1’374 words long. In order to get to a million words it needs to be duplicated 727,80 times . Also for the experiment we will be using Arial, a font-size of 12 pts, and A4 sheets of paper. Here are the results :

Approximately 6’830’395 characters (with spaces) or 5’830’394 characters (no spaces)

Approximately 80’786 lines, on A4 paper using Arial 12.

Approximately 1’796 A4 pages or 1’120’165 cm2 of printed area using Arial 12.

Using Gutemberg’s Spine Width Calculator our 1’796 pages long book would have a spine width of 73 mm with a soft cover.

Damien ELLIOTT

• Selected Artworks
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• About Damien Elliott
• UI / UX design
• Altération (7)
• Altered Echo (8)
• Between the lines (4)
• Coordinates (3)
• Crypto translate (4)
• Digital deconstruction (2)
• Lipogram (9)
• NBA Heroes (10)
• Pour Traits (4)
• Recomposition (12)
• Syllable (2)
• Tribute (1)
• Visual Acuity (2)
• Alaclair Ensemble (1)
• American Psycho (Movie) — Mary Harron (1)
• Blackjack — Ray Charles (1)
• Dennis Rodman (1)
• Gymnopédies — Erik Satie (1)
• Holy Sheets (2)
• L'étranger — Albert Camus (2)
• La Disparition — Georges Perec (1)
• Le bateau ivre — Arthur Rimbaud (3)
• Malcolm in the Middle (TV Show) (1)
• Metallica (1)
• Super Mario Bros 1 (1)
• Super Mario Bros 3 (3)
• The Beatles (2)
• The Gregorian Calendar (2)
• The Princess and the Pea — Andersen (1)
• The Shinning (Movie) — Stanley Kubrick (2)
• The Walking Dead (TV Show) (1)
• Where the Wild Things Are — Maurice Sendak (1)
• Game of life — Conway (2)
• Gravity (6)
• Hollywood (7)
• Litterature (8)
• Numbers in Letters (3)
• One Dollar Bill (2)
• Organic (1)
• Photocopier (3)
• Pi 3.14 (4)
• Sneakers (1)
• Tabloid Material (1)
• Video-games (5)

Primary Matter

• Currency (2)
• Indo-European linguistic reconstruction (13)
• Infinity (10)
• Pop Culture (36)
• Topography (4)
• Diptych (45)
• Hexaptych (2)
• Singleptych (13)
• Triptych (14)

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Free AI tool

Free paragraph generator.

Automatically generate a perfect paragraph for your next blog post.

✍️ Write Smarter, not Harder with NeuralText.

What is a paragraph generator.

A paragraph generator is an online software that generates a text based on user-provided input. You can generate long paragraphs just by giving in input a list of keywords or a full sentence. The software then uses AI to generate a paragraph of text that try to respect your input and include the specific words.

How can a paragraph generator be used?

Business users can use a paragraph generator to identify potential markets and opportunities based on user-supplied parameters. Some examples of business sectors a paragraph AI writer can generate ideas for are technology, health care and transportation. You can use it in your blog, intro, social media post or essays.

What should I do once I have generated ideas?

Once you have used a paragraph generator to generate ideas, you can copy-paste the output in a text editor as a starting point for further research or writing.

You can also share the generated paragraphs with others to get their feedback on your ideas. If you are using the paragraph generator for academic purposes, make sure to cite the tool in your essay.

What is a very long paragraph?

A very long paragraph is a paragraph with more than 200 words that is excessively long and rambling. This type of paragraph can be difficult to read and understand, and it can make your writing look unprofessional. If you find yourself generating very long paragraphs, try breaking them up into smaller paragraphs or bullet points.

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Using the new version of Neuraltext and so very impressed by the great work they've done with their content optimizer/writing assistant and keyword tool 👏

I've been looking to build SEO keyword-optimized content for my site with a tool that can read through large blocks of text and present word suggestions at the best spots. It's great to see that the new NeuralText tool achieves this, which I think makes it quite unique among the others I have seen.

The first thing I noticed is the slick UI and really smooth user experience. I was quite impressed with the quality of the outputs.

Content research analysis includes the topic questions, keywords and top-ranking websites. It helps with content research: keyword identification, topic research and outlining of blogs. NeuralText is a great addition to my workflow.

Robust AI Content Creation. I like the feature set of NeuralText. There is a lot that this platform can accomplish. Working through writer's block can be difficult. NeuralText helps overcome the inertia of not knowing where to start with your content creation.

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Random Paragraph Generator

Please LIKE & SHARE to keep our generators available!

If you're looking for random paragraphs, you've come to the right place. When a random word or a random sentence isn't quite enough, the next logical step is to find a random paragraph. We created the Random Paragraph Generator with you in mind. The process is quite simple. Choose the number of random paragraphs you'd like to see and click the button. Your chosen number of paragraphs will instantly appear.

While it may not be obvious to everyone, there are a number of reasons creating random paragraphs can be useful. A few examples of how some people use this generator are listed in the following paragraphs.

Creative Writing

Generating random paragraphs can be an excellent way for writers to get their creative flow going at the beginning of the day. The writer has no idea what topic the random paragraph will be about when it appears. This forces the writer to use creativity to complete one of three common writing challenges. The writer can use the paragraph as the first one of a short story and build upon it. A second option is to use the random paragraph somewhere in a short story they create. The third option is to have the random paragraph be the ending paragraph in a short story. No matter which of these challenges is undertaken, the writer is forced to use creativity to incorporate the paragraph into their writing.

Tackle Writers' Block

A random paragraph can also be an excellent way for a writer to tackle writers' block. Writing block can often happen due to being stuck with a current project that the writer is trying to complete. By inserting a completely random paragraph from which to begin, it can take down some of the issues that may have been causing the writers' block in the first place.

Beginning Writing Routine

Another productive way to use this tool to begin a daily writing routine. One way is to generate a random paragraph with the intention to try to rewrite it while still keeping the original meaning. The purpose here is to just get the writing started so that when the writer goes onto their day's writing projects, words are already flowing from their fingers.

Writing Challenge

Another writing challenge can be to take the individual sentences in the random paragraph and incorporate a single sentence from that into a new paragraph to create a short story. Unlike the random sentence generator , the sentences from the random paragraph will have some connection to one another so it will be a bit different. You also won't know exactly how many sentences will appear in the random paragraph.

Programmers

It's not only writers who can benefit from this free online tool. If you're a programmer who's working on a project where blocks of text are needed, this tool can be a great way to get that. It's a good way to test your programming and that the tool being created is working well.

Above are a few examples of how the random paragraph generator can be beneficial. The best way to see if this random paragraph picker will be useful for your intended purposes is to give it a try. Generate a number of paragraphs to see if they are beneficial to your current project.

If you do find this paragraph tool useful, please do us a favor and let us know how you're using it. It's greatly beneficial for us to know the different ways this tool is being used so we can improve it with updates. This is especially true since there are times when the generators we create get used in completely unanticipated ways from when we initially created them. If you have the time, please send us a quick note on what you'd like to see changed or added to make it better in the future.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can i use these random paragraphs for my project.

Yes! All of the random paragraphs in our generator are free to use for your projects.

Does a computer generate these paragraphs?

No! All of the paragraphs in the generator are written by humans, not computers. When first building this generator we thought about using computers to generate the paragraphs, but they weren't very good and many times didn't make any sense at all. We therefore took the time to create paragraphs specifically for this generator to make it the best that we could.

Can I contribute random paragraphs?

Yes. We're always interested in improving this generator and one of the best ways to do that is to add new and interesting paragraphs to the generator. If you'd like to contribute some random paragraphs, please contact us.

How many words are there in a paragraph?

There are usually about 200 words in a paragraph, but this can vary widely. Most paragraphs focus on a single idea that's expressed with an introductory sentence, then followed by two or more supporting sentences about the idea. A short paragraph may not reach even 50 words while long paragraphs can be over 400 words long, but generally speaking they tend to be approximately 200 words in length.

Other Random Generators

Here you can find all the other Random Generators:

• Random Word Generator
• Random Noun Generator
• Random Synonym Generator
• Random Verb Generator
• Random Name Generator
• Random Adjective Generator
• Random Sentence Generator
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• Never Have I Ever Questions
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• Decision Maker
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• Random Color Generator
• Random Things to Draw New
• Random Coloring Pages New
• Tongue Twisters New

Longest Text Ever (LTE)

Welcome to the website for a specific type of website or blog or whatever, a Longest Text Ever, or an LTE for short. I'm still working on some other things to add to this site, such as a supposed LTE Rules page and probably some other things I haven't thought of yet. If you've found or made an LTE not listed on here (or you have any other inquiries), email me! I may not respond all the time or in a timely manner, but I'll try!! Archival of LTEs only apply to those that are inactive (3 months without update). LTEs that become active after being archived are not re-archived unless that requirement is met.

Credit to viba for discovering most of the older LTEs on here.

Last updated on July 13th, 2024.

• Knockton's Potato LTE - 581,778 characters, started on June 2nd - 2022, active. Holds the record for being the longest on this list.
• The Pink-ish Pickle LTE - 283,502 characters, started on February 13th - 2020, active.
• Mckenzie's LTE - 282,993 characters, started on March 4th - 2020, active.
• Hermnerp's LTE - 230,634 characters, started on January 19th - 2004, ended in ~2009. (Archive)
• Flaming Chicken's LTE - 203,941 characters, started in ~2004, ended in ~2005. (Archive)
• RainbowFluffySheep's LoTeEv (Part 1) - 147,554 characters, started on March 2nd - 2018 and completed on December 7th - 2019? Original link may not be viewable on devices with a school proxy. (Archive)
• RainbowFluffySheep's LoTeEv (Part 2) - 102,992 characters, started sometime after part 1, last updated on May 5th - 2020. Original link may not be viewable on devices with a school proxy. (Archive)
• Falcon XWPlays's LTE - 107,292 characters, started on June 29th - 2023, possibly inactive.
• Iseycupcake's LTE - 92,522 characters, started on May 29th - 2020, currently inactive. (Archive)
• WhileTrue's LTE - 79,766 characters, started in March 2019, (updated recently but) ended in July 2019. (Archive)
• spice04's LTE - 79,593 characters, started on December 6th - 2023, active.
• 大円三とわはＳＭＭ's LTE - 61,369 characters, started on September 9th - 2022, active. (Old Archive)
• Slashii LTE - 50,944 characters, started on May 21st - 2023, last updated on October 1st, 2023. (Archive)
• NuclearPoultry's LTE (or The Longest Text Page) - 23,893 characters, started late July 2012, ended on July 24th - 2012? Original link may not be viewable on devices with a school proxy. (Archive)
• Kenneth Iman's LTE - 21,425 characters, started in ~2013, ended in ~2015. Original link got wiped, use the archive. (Archive)
• Textra LTE - 14,487 characters, started on September 10th - 2021, currently inactive. (Archive)
• The Book of Monika - 13,357 characters, started and last updated on June 15th, 2021, currently inactive. (Archive)
• BusterDdog's Kinda Boring Life - 12,734 characters, started on January 8th - 2021, currently inactive. (Archive)

Free AI Paragraph Generator

Get your writing process off to a great start by generating fully coherent, compelling paragraphs.

Write about...

Use cases of ahrefs’ paragraph generator.

Content creation. Ahrefs’ Paragraph Generator can be utilized to quickly generate engaging and informative paragraphs for various types of content. Whether it's blog posts, articles, product descriptions, or social media captions, the tool can assist in generating compelling paragraphs, saving time and effort for content creators.

Academic writing. Students and researchers can benefit from Ahrefs’ Paragraph Generator when working on papers, essays, or research articles. By providing the necessary instructions, the tool can generate well-structured paragraphs that present key arguments, evidence, and analysis, aiding in the writing process.

Personal writing and communication. Individuals who need to write emails, personal letters, or other forms of written communication can leverage Ahrefs’ Paragraph Generator. It can help in composing coherent and well-structured paragraphs, ensuring effective expression of thoughts and ideas, while also saving time by providing a starting point for the writing process.

The technology behind Ahrefs’ Paragraph Generator

Ahrefs’ Paragraph Generator uses a language model that learns patterns, grammar, and vocabulary from large amounts of text data – then uses that knowledge to generate human-like text based on a given prompt or input. The generated text combines both the model's learned information and its understanding of the input.

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Input your rough ideas and transition from a blank page to an organized, well-structured outline in minutes.

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How to Write a Long Essay | Steps & Examples

Textero AI Writing Tool

Writing effective long essays poses unique challenges for students. Without proper planning and organization, it is easy to lose focus or stray away from the main argument. This article will outline best practices for writing long essays, including crucial steps for planning, structuring, researching, drafting, and revising. Following these key tips will help students improve their extended writing abilities to compose cohesive, convincing, and compelling long essays.

What is a Long Essay?

A long essay is generally defined as an essay that exceeds the typical length requirements of a standard high school or college essay, which tends to range from 250–500 words. Long essays are usually 1,500 words or more. The primary differences between regular essays and long essays include the depth of analysis required, the number and type of sources that must be referenced, and the overall structure.

Qualifies as a Long Essay?

Standard college essays often have strict length requirements, typically ranging from 250–500 words. These essay assignments aim to test a student’s ability to organize their thoughts, articulate an argument, and synthesize information — all in a fairly short piece of writing. Long essays are set apart by their extended length, clocking in at 1,500 words or more.

The main traits that distinguish long essays are:

• Length — Long essays may have suggested minimum word counts of 1,500 words or more or length expectations of multiple pages.
• Depth of Analysis — Due to the increased length of leeway, long essays require developing ideas in-depth by incorporating detailed explanations, multiple perspectives, thorough assessments of evidence, etc. Short essays often just hit the surface.
• Research — Long papers frequently necessitate consulting outside academic sources to provide historical context, criticism, definitions, and real-world examples that reinforce the writer’s central ideas. This level of research is not expected in shorter pieces.
• Types of Assignments — Typical long essay assignments include research papers, dissertations, theses, reflective or critical analyses, investigative reports, term papers, and other major writing tasks required in high school and college courses.

The goals and expectations also tend to differentiate a short college paper and these extensive papers. While shorter essays aim to evaluate basic comprehension and writing competence, long essays prioritize higher analytical thinking skills including substantive reasoning, scholarly insight, and the ability to write a well-supported, persuasive argument at length.

How to Write a Long Essay?

1. planning your long essay.

When writing a long, complex essay assignment, laying the groundwork with a thoughtful plan and process is essential. Rather than jumping straight into drafting, it is vital to dedicate time upfront to organize your ideas, conduct research, and map out the structure of your essay. This crucial planning stage will help ensure your long essay stays focused and hits all of the key points for a high grade.

• Importance of Planning: Planning grants you the time and creative space to narrow the scope of your topic properly. It enables you to conduct more targeted research. Most critically, it empowers you to thoughtfully structure the flow of ideas and arguments in your paper before bogging yourself down, drafting paragraph by paragraph. Planning for the long haul saves so much time and frustration down the line!
• Choosing a Focused Topic: Given the length and depth required for long essays, it is vital to narrow down your topic area substantially to a specific, focused question or central argument that can sustain thousands upon thousands of words. This will provide direction to what research you need to conduct and key points to start structuring in your outline.
• Research Sources: The research component is important for long papers. Compile detailed notes, citations, data, contextual information, expert viewpoints, counter perspectives, definitions, critiques, historical frameworks, etc. to provide the evidence backbone of your essay.
• Structuring with a Detailed Outline: Using Roman numerals and alphabet outlines, systematically map out the logical flow of the introduction, body, and conclusion sections. Outline the progression of essential ideas you want to examine, major themes and concepts you aim to discuss, and connections between compelling evidence and analysis.
• Adequate Time for Drafting + Revising: Long essays should integrate multiple rounds of revision to sharpen arguments, improve flow, reinforce gaps in analysis, double-check details/evidence for accuracy, and polish the writing. Building in time allows papers to evolve incrementally towards excellence. Don’t cut the process short! Set aside weeks in advance.

2. Organizing Your Thoughts

When dealing with a lengthy, complex writing assignment, it can be tremendously difficult to keep your train of thought on track from start to finish. Without purposeful organization, long essays can easily veer off course or fail to connect concepts cohesively. Implementing some key organizational techniques can help combat confusion and streamline structure.

• Staying Focused: To grapple with the issue of losing focus in a massive sea of information, consciously reinforce connections to your thesis statement or research question throughout. Construct strong topic sentences to launch each paragraph, always linking back to central arguments.
• Topic Sentences: Topic sentences define what the paragraph will convey and how it contributes to the overall paper goals. They serve as neat conceptual packaging for individual ideas. Topic sentences will keep both you as the writer and the reader grounded in the purpose of each section.
• Organizing Techniques: Certain established organizing methods — like arranging content in chronological order, separating into cause and effect logic, or presenting a compare and contrast analysis — add natural structure. Format paragraphs moving from general ideas towards specific evidence. Break extended papers into digestible chunks with helpful headlines and subsections guided by the outline process.
• Transitions: Thoughtful transitions stitch together the underlying progressions between paragraphs so that concepts truly flow together rather than seeming disconnected. Echo key words and themes that anchor recurring concepts. Communicate when you are elaborating on an idea versus pivoting to a contrasting point.

3. Following Best Practices for Long Essays

When undertaking a complex, research-intensive long essay assignment, integrating certain best practices around formatting guidelines, source handling, and self-editing is crucial for meeting length requirements smoothly as well as academic standards for quality.

• Formatting Elements: Most academic long essays demand consistency in properly formatting key elements like title pages, tables of contents page numbering, and bibliographies. Handling these structured details thoroughly elevates polish.
• Title Page — Title pages introduce the paper’s full title (reflecting a specific, narrow focus), author name, institutional affiliation, course name and number, professor/instructor name, and date submitted.
• Tables of Contents — Multi-section papers spanning considerable length merit handy tables of contents guiding readers regarding page number locations for each segment of analysis.
• Bibliographies — Comprehensive bibliographies should include every external text cited within the body per required citation system guidelines (like APA, MLA, etc) with consistent formatting.
• Integrating Citations: Seamlessly integrating evidence citations without abruptly disrupting reading flow demonstrates academic rigor. Powerful analytical observations grounded in expert sources carry substantial weight.
• Balancing Analysis and Evidence: While substantial proof substantiates assertions, analysis still plays the lead role sculpting connections that synthesize broader meaning. Allow evidence paragraphs room to breathe.
• Connecting Ideas: Consistently bridge concepts delivered through facts/data back to original lines of argumentation. Overtly underscore relations between evidence and main paper objectives. Guide audiences through underlying reasoning actively.
• Proofreading: Meticulously proofread final drafts to pinpoint any gaps in analysis requiring expansion to propel arguments further. Verify writing flows coherently from one idea to the next without non-sequiturs. Confirm grammar, syntax, and stylistic consistency through every page while also tightening verbose passages. Performing thorough final polish promotes maximum scholastic results when facing rigorous long essay criteria.

4. Writing Your Introduction and Conclusion

Anchoring academic papers with equally impactful introductions and conclusions posture arguments advantageously right out the gate then tie everything together beautifully in the end. When tackling long essays full of intricate ideas, dynamic framing is essential.

Introduction Techniques

Introductions mold first impressions regarding paper potential/promise through various hook tactics:

• Pose an intriguing question on the topic area that sparks readers’ curiosity and compels deeper examination.
• Include a timely, startling statistic on the issue highlighting why it matters.
• Open with an impactful, thought-provoking quote from an industry expert before sharing broader context.
• Feature a brief anecdote exemplifying challenges raised by the essay prompt/subject.
• For research papers, avoid front-loading background context excessively. Briefly highlight the significance of the chosen research directions and smoothly transition into the methodology.

Conclusion Strategies

Conclusions for intensive long-form writing assignments have room for amplified summation without excessive repetition of precise details/evidence already covered at length.

• Echo back to opening hooks reminding the audience of the initial impact to underscore relevance.
• Draw far-reaching conclusions derived through key learnings contained within multiple prongs of analysis.
• On that higher plane, address meaningful implications raised by research outcomes for positive future advancement of the field/discipline.
• Close with insightful commentary, where appropriate, on how audiences might apply certain takeaways or adopt evolved philosophies on the issues examined.

Writing a compelling long essay is a highly valuable academic skill requiring the synthesis of extensive research, logical reasoning, persuasive writing, adherence to major formatting guidelines, and quality control self-editing skills. By following key steps like selecting narrowly focused topics granting room for in-depth analysis, planning papers before drafting content, organizing related chunks of information systematically, integrating outside evidence persuasively, and polished introductions and conclusions, students can thrive when confronting assignments requiring thousands upon thousands of words.

However, crafting exceptional long essays does necessitate investing adequate time upfront and persisting through multiple rounds of revision to hone arguments effectively. Sharpening complex, detailed writing aptitudes around generating watertight thesis statements, smoothly integrating APA/MLA citations, formatting fully structured bibliographies, and strengthening causal links between concepts takes practice across years of applying feedback.

Written by Textero AI Writing Tool

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How to Use the Best Longer Sentence Generator to Improve Your Writing

As a writer, you want to create clear and concise sentences that effectively communicate your ideas. However, sometimes you may find yourself struggling to express your thoughts in a cohesive and engaging way. That's where a sentence expander tool like the Longer Sentence Generator can come in handy.

What is a Longer Sentence Generator?

A Longer Sentence Generator is a powerful online tool that can help you make your sentences longer and more complex. Whether you're writing an essay, a research paper, or simply trying to express yourself more effectively, this tool can help you improve the quality of your writing.

How Does the Longer Sentence Generator Work?

Using the Longer Sentence Generator is easy. Simply type in the sentence you want to expand and click the "generate" button. The tool will then analyze your sentence and provide you with a longer and more complex version that you can use in your writing.

Make Your Writing More Interesting with the Sentence Expander Tool

Are you tired of writing the same old sentences over and over again? Do you want to make your writing more interesting and engaging for your readers? The sentence expander tool can help you do just that.

By using the sentence expander tool, you can take a simple sentence and turn it into a longer, more complex one that captures your reader's attention. This is especially useful when writing headlines, introductions, and conclusions that need to be attention-grabbing.

Tips for Making Your Sentences Longer

Before we dive into the tools and generators, let's first look at some tips for making your sentences longer:

Use descriptive language: Instead of saying "the car drove down the street," try saying "the red sports car careened down the winding road."

Add adjectives and adverbs: Use words like "beautiful," "tremendous," and "elegantly" to add more detail and description to your sentences.

Use conjunctions: Using words like "and," "but," and "although" can help you connect shorter sentences and make them longer.

Include examples: Adding examples and specific details can help flesh out your sentences and add more substance to your writing.

How to Use These Tools

To use these tools, simply copy and paste your existing sentences into the input field and let the generator do the work. You can then edit the generated text to fit your needs and style.

Maximize Your Writing Potential with AI and GPT Technology

The Longer Sentence Generator utilizes the latest in artificial intelligence and GPT technology to ensure that your writing is of the highest quality. By using this cutting-edge tool, you can be sure that your sentences are not only longer but also more grammatically correct and stylistically polished.

Best of all, the Longer Sentence Generator is available online and completely free to use. So why not give it a try and see how it can take your writing to the next level?

In conclusion, the Longer Sentence Generator is a must-have tool for anyone who wants to improve their writing. By using this tool, you can create longer, more engaging sentences that effectively communicate your ideas to your readers. So what are you waiting for? Try the Longer Sentence Generator today and take your writing to the next level!

FAQ: How to Make Your Writing Longer

Q: how can i make a sentence longer.

A: One easy way to make a sentence longer is to add descriptive words or phrases. For example, instead of saying "The dog barked," you could say "The furry golden retriever barked loudly at the mailman." Another option is to use conjunctions to combine multiple sentences into one longer sentence. Keep in mind, however, that it's important to maintain clarity and avoid wordiness.

Q: What AI makes your sentences longer?

A: There are several AI-powered tools available that can help extend your sentences or paragraphs. One popular option is the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) language model, which can generate text based on a given input. Other tools include the Sentence Expander and the Sentence Extender Generator.

Q: How can I make my paragraph longer?

A: To make a paragraph longer, you can add more detail or examples to support your main points. Another option is to introduce new ideas or arguments that are related to your topic. However, it's important to maintain coherence and avoid repetition or irrelevant information.

Q: What words make your essay longer?

A: While it's not recommended to simply add words for the sake of increasing length, there are some techniques that can help you expand your writing. For example, using synonyms or related words can help you avoid repeating the same words or phrases. Another option is to use transitional words and phrases, such as "furthermore" or "in addition," to connect your ideas and create a more cohesive essay.

Q: What are longer sentence tools?

A: Longer sentence tools, also known as sentence expanders, sentence lengtheners, or sentence lengthening tools, are tools that increase the length of a sentence by adding modifiers, replacing phrases with longer ones, and repeating parts of sentences.

Q: How do AI longer sentence tools work?

A: AI longer sentence tools analyze the context of the words used in a given set of sentences or phrases and use various techniques to add extra words, phrases, and modifiers to create longer and more interesting sentences.

Q: What are the benefits of using an AI longer sentence tool?

A: Using an AI longer sentence tool can save time and effort by automating the process of expanding sentences, improve the quality of content by providing more detailed information, and increase productivity and efficiency.

Q: How can an AI longer sentence tool improve the quality of writing?

A: AI longer sentence tools provide writers with synonyms and other words that can be used to expand their sentences, which can improve the quality of writing by creating longer and more engaging sentences without sacrificing readability or coherence.

Letter of Apology • Apology Letter

Free sample letters of apology for personal and professional situations.

559 apology letter templates you can download and print for free. We have advice on writing letters of apology plus sample letters for personal, school, and business situations.

Here are the 10 most popular Apology Letters:

• Apology Letter for Behavior
• Apology Letter for Misconduct
• Apology Letter to Get Job Back
• Apology Letter to Boss
• Apology Letter for Late Payment
• Apology Letter to Employer Second Chance
• Child Apology for Bullying
• Late Apology
• Apology Letter to Police
• Apology For Accusing Cheating
• Apologizing When You Don't Mean It
• How Not To Write An Apology
• Apology Letter Tips
• How to Write an Apology to Your Spouse
• Writing a Letter of Apology
• General Apology Letters
• Apology For College Tardiness
• Apology For Missing College Class
• Apology Detailing What Went Wrong
• Apology For Apologizing Too Much
• Apology For Blocking Someone
• Apology For Flaking On Group Project
• Apology For Not Attending
• Apology Accompanying Partial Payment
• Apology For Additional Expense Personal
• Apology For Complaining About Expense
• Apology For Late Submission
• Apology For Rejecting Offer
• Apology For Rushing You
• Apology For Tight Budget
• Apology For Car Causing Damage
• Apology For Child Breaking Item
• Apology For Complaining So Much
• Apology For Condition Of House Or Yard
• Apology For Dog Poop
• Apology In Advance For Loud Party
• Apology To HOA
• Sorry Cannot Attend Due To Human Rights Issue
• Apology For Adding To Schedule
• Apology For Error College Admissions Process Administration
• Apology For Error College Admissions Process Student
• Apology Including Request
• Apology For Privacy Breach School
• Declining College Acceptance
• Text Message Apology
• Text Message Mass Apology
• Apology For Being Late Happy Reason
• Apology For Being Late Sad Reason
• Apology For Huge Mistake
• Apology For Video Game Argument
• Apology And This Will Never Happen Again
• Apology For Big Mistake
• Apology For Not Following Through
• Apology For Small Mistake
• Apology With Action Steps
• Apology For Gambling
• Apology For Online Miscommunication
• Apology Not Your Fault
• Sorry For Gallows Humor
• Apology For Bad Meal
• Apology For Not Coming To Party
• Apology For Not Donating
• Apology With Pledge To Donate
• Sorry You Dont Feel Well
• Apology For Missing Rehearsal
• So Sorry For Bothering You
• Apology For Dog
• Apology For Missing Appointment Waive Fee
• Apology For Not Leaving A Tip
• Apology And Offer To Avoid
• Apology For Aggressive Behavior
• Apology For Making Someone Late
• Apology For Stealing Poem
• Apology When Done Nothing Wrong
• Sorry For Bothering You
• Sorry For What I Said
• Apology For Damage To Borrowed Car
• Apology Rude On Facebook
• Blanket Apology
• Twitter Apology
• Apology For Prank
• Apology For Something You Dont Remember
• Apology To Roommate Breaking Lease
• Apology To Roommate Cleaning
• Apology To Roommate Late Payment
• Apology for Bad Driving
• Non-Apology Apology
• Apology Letter For Bad Job Housesitting
• Apology Letter For Flaking
• Apology Letter For Missing Meeting
• Apology Letter Social Media
• Apology On Twitter
• Apology for Delayed Response
• Apology for Hitting Car
• Apology Not Attending Wedding
• Apology to Landlord
• Informal Apology Letter
• Apology Letter for Mistake
• Blank Apology Letter
• Casual Apology Letter
• Criminal Apology Letter
• Cultural Misunderstanding Apology Letter
• Formal letter of Apology
• Insincere Apology Letter
• Letter of Apology for Delay
• Letter of Apology Examples
• Letter of Apology for Mistake
• Letter of Apology
• Mocking Apology Letter
• Sample Apology Letter
• Apology Letter for Dog Bite
• Apology Letter for Not Attending Funeral
• Apology Letter for Vehicle Damage
• Apology Letter from Church
• Apology Letter Without Admitting Guilt
• Personal Letters of Apology
• Apology For Breaking Promise
• Apology For Forgetting Anniversary
• Apology For Interrupting During Personal Conversation
• Apology For Not Being Present During Crisis
• Apology For Thoughtless Comment
• Apology For Being Toxic
• Apology For Using Wrong Pronoun
• Apology To Rebuild Trust Personal
• Apology Validating Other Person Personal
• Apology For Venting
• Apology With Promise
• Apology For Coming On Too Strong
• Apology For Crossing A Line
• Apology For Crying Wolf
• Apology For Giving Up
• Apology For Insecurity
• Apology For Leading Someone On
• Apology For Past Mistakes
• Apology For Ruining Your Life
• Apology With Gift
• Apology For Disrespecting Religion Or Faith
• Apology For Downplaying Pain
• Roommate Apology
• Roommate Apology With Request
• Apology For Dating Your Ex
• Apology For Judging And Lecturing
• Apology For Overreacting Due To Health Issues
• Apology For Overreacting Due To Personal Trauma
• Basic Apology Personal
• Regrets For Not Attending Event
• Apology For Canceling Plans
• Apology For Movie Argument
• Apology For Not Respecting Decision
• Apology For Not Stepping Up
• Apology For Persistence
• Apology For Argument Standing Ground
• Apology For Insensitivity
• Apology For Not Attending Gathering
• Apology For Political Argument Agree To Disagree
• Apology For Being Blunt
• Apology For Being Distant
• Apology For Transmitting Contagious Disease
• Sorry For Believing Lies
• Sorry For Caregiver Fatigue
• Sorry I Was Only Trying To Help
• Apology For Embarrassing Someone
• Apology For Insulting Spouse
• Apology For Not Supporting Child Fundraiser
• Apology For So Many Texts
• Apology For Spreading Illness
• Clueless Apology Letter
• Sorry For Misspelling Name
• Sorry I Forgot To Get Item
• Sorry I Woke You
• Apology For Ruining Trip
• Personal Apology For Injury
• Sorry For Losing Contact
• Sorry For Losing Your Pet
• Apology For Anxiety
• Apology For Argument About Political Leader
• Apology For Bad Joke
• Apology For Forgetting To Invite You
• Apology For Ghosting
• Apology For Not Showing Up After RSVP
• Apology For Not Showing Up For Date
• Apology For Questioning Your Judgment
• Apology For Sharing On Social Media
• Apology For Waking Baby
• Apology For Waking Someone
• Apology For Walking In On You
• Apology For Watching Show Without You
• Apology For Ignoring Person
• Apology For Not Believing Person
• Apology For Snooping
• Apology For Stealing Girlfriend
• Apology For Trigger
• Christian Apology Letter
• Sorry That I Let You Go
• Apology Didn't Visit Sick Friend
• Apology For Hurtful Language
• Apology For Lice
• Apology For Misgendering
• Apology For Political Argument
• Apology For Taking Advantage Child Care
• Apology Houseguest Ruined Something
• Apology For Arrogance
• Apology For Bad Date
• Apology For Bad First Impression
• Apology For Being Creepy
• Apology For Breaking Item
• Apology For Canceling Date
• Apology For Leaving Someone Out
• Apology For Lost Item
• Apology For Passive Aggressive Behavior
• Apology On Behalf Of Partner
• Apology for Drunk Text
• Apology for Everything
• Apology for Jealousy
• Apology for Not Texting Back
• Apology Letter For Being Rude To Dog
• Apology Letter For Flaking On Lunch
• Apology Letter For Flipping Out
• Apology Letter For Overreacting
• Apology Letter Spreading Disease
• Apology for Wrong Name
• Apology to Get Ex Back
• Apology to In-Laws
• Apology to Old Friend
• Apology for Bounced Check
• Apology for Noise
• Apology for Verbal Abuse
• Apology Letter for Cancellation
• Apology Letter for Cell Phone Use
• Apology Letter for Missing Appointment
• Apology to Pastor Repentance Letter
• Alcoholics Anonymous Apology Letter
• Apologize Letter for Not Attending
• Apology Divorce Letters
• Apology Letter to Boyfriend
• Apology Letter for Accidental Damage
• Apology Letter for Being Tardy
• Apology Letter for Coming Late
• Apology Letter For Hurt Feelings
• Apology Letter for Not Attending
• Apology Letter for Pet Behavior
• Apology Letter Girlfriend
• Apology Letter on Behalf of Child
• Apology Letter to Child
• Apology Letter to Ex
• Apology Letter to Grandparent
• Apology Letter to Husband
• Apology Letter to Wife
• Child Apology to Friend
• Letter Apology for Absence
• Letter of Apology � Personal
• Letter of Apology to a Friend
• Letter of Love Apology
• Neighbor Apology Letter
• Apology Letter Breaking Trust
• Apology Letter for Forgetting
• Apology Letter for Lost Item
• Letters of Apology for Misbehavior
• Apology For Accidentally Taking Item
• Apology For Illegal Dumping
• Apology For Poaching
• Apology For Laundry Room Etiquette
• Apology For Misbehavior On Airplane
• Apology For Parking In Wrong Spot
• Apology For Spoiling A Movie Or TV Show
• Apology For Theft
• Apology For Personal Misstep
• Apology For Disregarding Public Health Guidance
• Apology For Downplaying Pandemic
• Apology For Spreading Covid
• Apology For Cultural Appropriation
• Apology For Hurtful Behavior
• Apology For Forgetting Dietary Restrictions
• Apology For Forgetting To Check
• Apology For Forgetting To Pick Someone Up
• Apology For Using Leverage
• Sorry For Dismissing Pandemic Concerns
• Sorry For Exposing To Virus
• Sorry For Hoarding Products
• Sorry For Not Following Health Guidelines
• Sorry For Violating Shelter-In-Place Orders
• Apology All My Fault
• Apology For Being Insensitive
• Apology For Making Fun
• Apology For Outburst
• Sorry For Being Curt With You
• Sorry For Being Defensive
• Sorry For Falsely Accusing You
• Apology For Clogging Toilet
• Apology For Invading Privacy
• Apology For Mansplaining
• Apology For Wedding Behavior
• Sorry For Being A Jerk
• Sorry For Being Mean
• Sorry For NSFW Message
• Apology For Allergen
• Apology For Bad Housesitting
• Apology For Borrowing Without Asking
• Apology For Insult
• Apology For Insulting Your Child
• Apology For Insulting Your Ex
• Apology For Being Lazy
• Apology For Body Slamming
• Apology For Bringing Up Painful Subject
• Apology For Abandoning Child
• Apology For Abandoning Partner
• Apology For Affair
• Apology For Avoiding Someone
• Apology For Cursing
• Apology For Emotional Affair
• Apology For Racist Comment
• Apology For Running Over Pet
• Apology For Temper
• Apology for Bad Apology
• Apology for Joke
• Apology for Offensive Behavior
• Apology for Offensive Tweet
• Apology Letter Alcoholic 12 Steps
• Apology Letter Alcoholic Step 9
• Apology Letter Yom Kippur
• Apology Letter Yom Kippur Betray Trust
• Apology Letter Yom Kippur Bad Behavior
• Apology for Addiction
• Apology for Getting Angry
• Apology for Offending Someone
• Apology to Victim
• Apology to Victim Family
• Apology for Assault
• Apology for Fire Alarm
• Apology for Gossip
• Apology for Graffiti
• Apology for Harassment
• Apology for Sexual Harassment
• Apology for Talking in Class
• Apology for Trespassing
• Apology for Vandalism
• Apology Letter For Drunkenness Funny
• Apology Letter for Infidelity
• Apology Letter for Plagiarism
• Apology Letter for Teasing
• Apology Letter for Unfaithfulness
• Apology Letter to Friend for Rudeness
• Apology to Pastor Church Disruption
• Apology Letter to Principal for Absence
• Apology Letter to Principal for Rule Breaking
• Insincere Apology Letter for Plagiarism
• Insincere Apology Letter for Shoplifting
• Apology Letter for Cheating
• Apology Letter for Shoplifting
• Apology Letter for Stealing
• Apology Letter to Judge
• Car Accident Apology Letter
• Child Apology to Teacher
• Letter of Apology to a Teacher
• Letter of Apology to Teacher
• Letter of Apology to the Court
• Teen Apology to School
• Apology Letter False Accusations
• Apology Letter for Flirting
• Apology Letter for Libel
• Apology Letter for Slander
• Apology Letter for Telling a Secret
• Workplace Letters of Apology
• Apology For Interrupting During Meeting
• Apology For Oversight At Work
• Apology For Taking Credit For Idea
• Apology Letter From Boss
• Apology For Joint Workplace Project
• Apology For Additional Expense Business
• Apology For Quitting Job
• Apology For Short Notice
• Apology For Not Being More Clear
• Apology For Adding To Workload
• Apology For Bothering You Again
• Apology For Going Over Budget
• Apology For Not Understanding Technology
• Apology For Proofreading Error
• Apology For So Many Emails
• Apology For Technology Failure
• Apology For Wrongly Ordering Item
• Apology For Zoom Incident
• Sorry For Forgetting Video Call
• Sorry For Inappropriate Behavior Video Call
• Sorry For Stressful Workplace
• Apology For Going Home Early
• Apology For Not Completing Clerical Task
• Apology For Not Preparing For Meeting
• Apology For Sending Package Late
• Sorry For Not Being A Team Player
• Sorry I Thought You Were Working On That
• Apology For Backstabbing Coworker
• Apology For Missing Deadline
• Apology For Mistake Can Fix
• Apology For Mistake Can't Fix
• Apology For Eating Your Office Food
• Apology For Giving Unauthorized Interview
• Apology For Reply All Email
• Apology For Work Dress Code Violation
• Apology For Taking Client
• Apology Didn't Receive Email
• Apology For Copyright Violation
• Apology For Work Mistake Need Help
• Apology For Workplace Politics
• Apology Lying On Resume
• Apology Shared Company Secret
• Apology Working Slowly
• Apology For Bad English
• Apology For Crying
• Apology For Procrastination
• Apology For Typos
• Apology For Wrong Information
• Apology For Wrong Name Email
• Apology for No Show Interview
• Apology for Oversleeping
• Apology for Work Mistake
• Apology Letter For Assuming
• Apology Letter For Resigning Volunteer Position
• Apology for Insubordination
• Apology for Unprofessionalism
• Apology to Professor
• Apology Letter Declining a Job Offer
• Apology Letter Not Coming to Work
• Apology Letter to a Boss
• Apology Letter to Client
• Apology Letter to Lecturer
• Professional Apology Letter
• Apology Letter Email Error
• Apology Letter for Hacked Account
• Apology Letter to Former Employer
• Sample Letters of Apology from a Business
• Apology For Customer Service
• Apology For Data Breach
• Apology For Delayed Product Launch
• Apology For Manufacturing Flaw
• Apology For Miscommunication With Client
• Apology For Misleading Advertisement
• Apology For Product Recall
• Apology For Website Technical Issues
• Apology To Rebuild Trust Business
• Apology Validating Other Person Business
• Apology For Quality Issue
• Apology For Bad Hair Cut Or Color
• Apology For Bad Manicure
• Apology For Damage
• Apology For Installation Issue
• Apology For Unsanitary Conditions
• Business Raising Rates With Apology
• Raising Premiums With Apology
• Raising Rent With Apology
• Senior Level Apology
• Apology For Delay Due To Volume Of Orders
• Apology For Holiday Delays
• Apology For Privacy Breach Business
• Basic Apology Business
• Third Party Apology
• Apology For Business Closure
• Apology For Cancelling Event
• Apology For Cancelling Order
• Apology For Cancelling Reservation
• Apology For Injury At Business
• Apology For Late Delivery
• Apology For Rude Employee
• Apology For Allergen Restaurant
• Apology For Dress Code Enforcement Mistake
• Apology For Inconvenience
• Apology Didn't Return Phone Call
• Apology For Inaccurate Bill
• Apology For Professional False Promise
• Apology For Server Outages
• Apology On Behalf Of Staff
• Apology To Library
• Apology for Double Charge
• Apology for Food Poisoning
• Apology for Hotel Overbooking
• Apology for Overbooking Pre-Arrival
• Apology for Overcharge
• Apology to Bad Review
• Apology to Guest
• Apology Letter For Low Rating
• Apology Letter For Misleading Customer
• Apology Letter For Missing Medical Appointment
• Apology for Defective Product
• Apology for Long Wait Time
• Apology for Unsolicited Email
• Apology to Candidate
• Apology to Patient
• Apology to Unsatisfied Customer
• Apology for Construction Noise
• Out of Stock Apology Letter
• Apology Letter from Airline
• Apology Letter from Airline Compensation
• Apology Letter for Copyright Infringement
• Apology Letter for Customer
• Apology Letter from Business
• Apology Letter from Hotel
• Apology Letter in Business
• Apology Letter to a Customer
• Apology Letter to Employee
• Letter of Apology Business
• Letter of Apology to Customer
• Letter of Business Apology
• Apology Letter for Damaged Goods
• Apology Letter Wrong Address
• Apology Letter Wrong Item Shipped
• Child Letters of Apology
• Child Apology Disruptive Behavior
• Child Apology For Cyberbullying
• Child Apology For Forging Parent Signature
• Apology For Missing Class
• Apology For Late Thank You Note
• Apology For Lying About Grades
• Apology For Lying About Money
• Apology For Not Completing Distance Learning Homework
• Apology For Arguing Child
• Apology For Sneaking By Child
• Apology For Cutting Class
• Sorry I Didnt Do Chores
• Apology For School Dress Code Violation
• Apology For Child Social Media
• Apology For Student Absent Vacation
• Child Apology Rude To Parents
• Apology for Egging House
• Apology Letter For Falling Asleep In Class
• Apology Letter For Not Doing Homework
• Apology Letter Yom Kippur Child
• Child Apology for Being Mean To Sibling
• Child Apology for Cursing
• Child Apology to Classmates
• Child Apology to Substitute Teacher
• Child Apology for Name Calling
• Child Apology Fill In The Blank
• Child Apology for Disrespect
• Child Apology for Hitting
• Child Apology for Lying
• Child Apology to Parent
• Apology Letter for Bad Attitude
• Apology Letter for Forgery
• Apology Letter for Wasting Time
• Public Apology
• Apology For Serial Harassment
• Apology For Wrongful Conviction
• Mass Apology Letter
• Public Apology For Lying
• Public Apology For Mockery Or Rudeness
• Apology For Retweeting
• Apology For Embezzlement
• Apology For Political Colleague
• Belated Apology
• Athlete Apology for Cheating
• Celebrity Apology for Arrest
• Political Apology for Action
• Political Apology for Statement
• Public Apology for Affair
• Apology Responses (NEW)
• Response Apology Academic Discipline
• Response Apology Amends
• Response Apology Crime Acceptance
• Response Apology Crime Rejection
• Response Apology Work Discipline
• Response Apology Offer Basic Personal
• Response Apology Offer Declined
• Response Apology Forgiven
• Response Apology Need More Time
• Response Apology Not Accepted
• Response Apology Not Necessary

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• Example of a great essay | Explanations, tips & tricks

Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks

Published on February 9, 2015 by Shane Bryson . Revised on July 23, 2023 by Shona McCombes.

This example guides you through the structure of an essay. It shows how to build an effective introduction , focused paragraphs , clear transitions between ideas, and a strong conclusion .

Each paragraph addresses a single central point, introduced by a topic sentence , and each point is directly related to the thesis statement .

As you read, hover over the highlighted parts to learn what they do and why they work.

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Table of contents

Other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about writing an essay, an appeal to the senses: the development of the braille system in nineteenth-century france.

The invention of Braille was a major turning point in the history of disability. The writing system of raised dots used by visually impaired people was developed by Louis Braille in nineteenth-century France. In a society that did not value disabled people in general, blindness was particularly stigmatized, and lack of access to reading and writing was a significant barrier to social participation. The idea of tactile reading was not entirely new, but existing methods based on sighted systems were difficult to learn and use. As the first writing system designed for blind people’s needs, Braille was a groundbreaking new accessibility tool. It not only provided practical benefits, but also helped change the cultural status of blindness. This essay begins by discussing the situation of blind people in nineteenth-century Europe. It then describes the invention of Braille and the gradual process of its acceptance within blind education. Subsequently, it explores the wide-ranging effects of this invention on blind people’s social and cultural lives.

Lack of access to reading and writing put blind people at a serious disadvantage in nineteenth-century society. Text was one of the primary methods through which people engaged with culture, communicated with others, and accessed information; without a well-developed reading system that did not rely on sight, blind people were excluded from social participation (Weygand, 2009). While disabled people in general suffered from discrimination, blindness was widely viewed as the worst disability, and it was commonly believed that blind people were incapable of pursuing a profession or improving themselves through culture (Weygand, 2009). This demonstrates the importance of reading and writing to social status at the time: without access to text, it was considered impossible to fully participate in society. Blind people were excluded from the sighted world, but also entirely dependent on sighted people for information and education.

In France, debates about how to deal with disability led to the adoption of different strategies over time. While people with temporary difficulties were able to access public welfare, the most common response to people with long-term disabilities, such as hearing or vision loss, was to group them together in institutions (Tombs, 1996). At first, a joint institute for the blind and deaf was created, and although the partnership was motivated more by financial considerations than by the well-being of the residents, the institute aimed to help people develop skills valuable to society (Weygand, 2009). Eventually blind institutions were separated from deaf institutions, and the focus shifted towards education of the blind, as was the case for the Royal Institute for Blind Youth, which Louis Braille attended (Jimenez et al, 2009). The growing acknowledgement of the uniqueness of different disabilities led to more targeted education strategies, fostering an environment in which the benefits of a specifically blind education could be more widely recognized.

Several different systems of tactile reading can be seen as forerunners to the method Louis Braille developed, but these systems were all developed based on the sighted system. The Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris taught the students to read embossed roman letters, a method created by the school’s founder, Valentin Hauy (Jimenez et al., 2009). Reading this way proved to be a rather arduous task, as the letters were difficult to distinguish by touch. The embossed letter method was based on the reading system of sighted people, with minimal adaptation for those with vision loss. As a result, this method did not gain significant success among blind students.

Louis Braille was bound to be influenced by his school’s founder, but the most influential pre-Braille tactile reading system was Charles Barbier’s night writing. A soldier in Napoleon’s army, Barbier developed a system in 1819 that used 12 dots with a five line musical staff (Kersten, 1997). His intention was to develop a system that would allow the military to communicate at night without the need for light (Herron, 2009). The code developed by Barbier was phonetic (Jimenez et al., 2009); in other words, the code was designed for sighted people and was based on the sounds of words, not on an actual alphabet. Barbier discovered that variants of raised dots within a square were the easiest method of reading by touch (Jimenez et al., 2009). This system proved effective for the transmission of short messages between military personnel, but the symbols were too large for the fingertip, greatly reducing the speed at which a message could be read (Herron, 2009). For this reason, it was unsuitable for daily use and was not widely adopted in the blind community.

Nevertheless, Barbier’s military dot system was more efficient than Hauy’s embossed letters, and it provided the framework within which Louis Braille developed his method. Barbier’s system, with its dashes and dots, could form over 4000 combinations (Jimenez et al., 2009). Compared to the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, this was an absurdly high number. Braille kept the raised dot form, but developed a more manageable system that would reflect the sighted alphabet. He replaced Barbier’s dashes and dots with just six dots in a rectangular configuration (Jimenez et al., 2009). The result was that the blind population in France had a tactile reading system using dots (like Barbier’s) that was based on the structure of the sighted alphabet (like Hauy’s); crucially, this system was the first developed specifically for the purposes of the blind.

While the Braille system gained immediate popularity with the blind students at the Institute in Paris, it had to gain acceptance among the sighted before its adoption throughout France. This support was necessary because sighted teachers and leaders had ultimate control over the propagation of Braille resources. Many of the teachers at the Royal Institute for Blind Youth resisted learning Braille’s system because they found the tactile method of reading difficult to learn (Bullock & Galst, 2009). This resistance was symptomatic of the prevalent attitude that the blind population had to adapt to the sighted world rather than develop their own tools and methods. Over time, however, with the increasing impetus to make social contribution possible for all, teachers began to appreciate the usefulness of Braille’s system (Bullock & Galst, 2009), realizing that access to reading could help improve the productivity and integration of people with vision loss. It took approximately 30 years, but the French government eventually approved the Braille system, and it was established throughout the country (Bullock & Galst, 2009).

Although Blind people remained marginalized throughout the nineteenth century, the Braille system granted them growing opportunities for social participation. Most obviously, Braille allowed people with vision loss to read the same alphabet used by sighted people (Bullock & Galst, 2009), allowing them to participate in certain cultural experiences previously unavailable to them. Written works, such as books and poetry, had previously been inaccessible to the blind population without the aid of a reader, limiting their autonomy. As books began to be distributed in Braille, this barrier was reduced, enabling people with vision loss to access information autonomously. The closing of the gap between the abilities of blind and the sighted contributed to a gradual shift in blind people’s status, lessening the cultural perception of the blind as essentially different and facilitating greater social integration.

The Braille system also had important cultural effects beyond the sphere of written culture. Its invention later led to the development of a music notation system for the blind, although Louis Braille did not develop this system himself (Jimenez, et al., 2009). This development helped remove a cultural obstacle that had been introduced by the popularization of written musical notation in the early 1500s. While music had previously been an arena in which the blind could participate on equal footing, the transition from memory-based performance to notation-based performance meant that blind musicians were no longer able to compete with sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997). As a result, a tactile musical notation system became necessary for professional equality between blind and sighted musicians (Kersten, 1997).

Braille paved the way for dramatic cultural changes in the way blind people were treated and the opportunities available to them. Louis Braille’s innovation was to reimagine existing reading systems from a blind perspective, and the success of this invention required sighted teachers to adapt to their students’ reality instead of the other way around. In this sense, Braille helped drive broader social changes in the status of blindness. New accessibility tools provide practical advantages to those who need them, but they can also change the perspectives and attitudes of those who do not.

Bullock, J. D., & Galst, J. M. (2009). The Story of Louis Braille. Archives of Ophthalmology , 127(11), 1532. https://​doi.org/10.1001/​archophthalmol.2009.286.

Herron, M. (2009, May 6). Blind visionary. Retrieved from https://​eandt.theiet.org/​content/​articles/2009/05/​blind-visionary/.

Jiménez, J., Olea, J., Torres, J., Alonso, I., Harder, D., & Fischer, K. (2009). Biography of Louis Braille and Invention of the Braille Alphabet. Survey of Ophthalmology , 54(1), 142–149. https://​doi.org/10.1016/​j.survophthal.2008.10.006.

Kersten, F.G. (1997). The history and development of Braille music methodology. The Bulletin of Historical Research in Music Education , 18(2). Retrieved from https://​www.jstor.org/​stable/40214926.

Mellor, C.M. (2006). Louis Braille: A touch of genius . Boston: National Braille Press.

Tombs, R. (1996). France: 1814-1914 . London: Pearson Education Ltd.

Weygand, Z. (2009). The blind in French society from the Middle Ages to the century of Louis Braille . Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates.

In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation.

The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:

• An opening hook to catch the reader’s attention.
• Relevant background information that the reader needs to know.
• A thesis statement that presents your main point or argument.

The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay .

A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay . Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.

A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph . Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence.

At college level, you must properly cite your sources in all essays , research papers , and other academic texts (except exams and in-class exercises).

Add a citation whenever you quote , paraphrase , or summarize information or ideas from a source. You should also give full source details in a bibliography or reference list at the end of your text.

The exact format of your citations depends on which citation style you are instructed to use. The most common styles are APA , MLA , and Chicago .

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If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Bryson, S. (2023, July 23). Example of a Great Essay | Explanations, Tips & Tricks. Scribbr. Retrieved September 5, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/example-essay-structure/

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3 Great Narrative Essay Examples + Tips for Writing

General Education

A narrative essay is one of the most intimidating assignments you can be handed at any level of your education. Where you've previously written argumentative essays that make a point or analytic essays that dissect meaning, a narrative essay asks you to write what is effectively a story .

But unlike a simple work of creative fiction, your narrative essay must have a clear and concrete motif —a recurring theme or idea that you’ll explore throughout. Narrative essays are less rigid, more creative in expression, and therefore pretty different from most other essays you’ll be writing.

But not to fear—in this article, we’ll be covering what a narrative essay is, how to write a good one, and also analyzing some personal narrative essay examples to show you what a great one looks like.

What Is a Narrative Essay?

At first glance, a narrative essay might sound like you’re just writing a story. Like the stories you're used to reading, a narrative essay is generally (but not always) chronological, following a clear throughline from beginning to end. Even if the story jumps around in time, all the details will come back to one specific theme, demonstrated through your choice in motifs.

Unlike many creative stories, however, your narrative essay should be based in fact. That doesn’t mean that every detail needs to be pure and untainted by imagination, but rather that you shouldn’t wholly invent the events of your narrative essay. There’s nothing wrong with inventing a person’s words if you can’t remember them exactly, but you shouldn’t say they said something they weren’t even close to saying.

Another big difference between narrative essays and creative fiction—as well as other kinds of essays—is that narrative essays are based on motifs. A motif is a dominant idea or theme, one that you establish before writing the essay. As you’re crafting the narrative, it’ll feed back into your motif to create a comprehensive picture of whatever that motif is.

For example, say you want to write a narrative essay about how your first day in high school helped you establish your identity. You might discuss events like trying to figure out where to sit in the cafeteria, having to describe yourself in five words as an icebreaker in your math class, or being unsure what to do during your lunch break because it’s no longer acceptable to go outside and play during lunch. All of those ideas feed back into the central motif of establishing your identity.

The important thing to remember is that while a narrative essay is typically told chronologically and intended to read like a story, it is not purely for entertainment value. A narrative essay delivers its theme by deliberately weaving the motifs through the events, scenes, and details. While a narrative essay may be entertaining, its primary purpose is to tell a complete story based on a central meaning.

Unlike other essay forms, it is totally okay—even expected—to use first-person narration in narrative essays. If you’re writing a story about yourself, it’s natural to refer to yourself within the essay. It’s also okay to use other perspectives, such as third- or even second-person, but that should only be done if it better serves your motif. Generally speaking, your narrative essay should be in first-person perspective.

Though your motif choices may feel at times like you’re making a point the way you would in an argumentative essay, a narrative essay’s goal is to tell a story, not convince the reader of anything. Your reader should be able to tell what your motif is from reading, but you don’t have to change their mind about anything. If they don’t understand the point you are making, you should consider strengthening the delivery of the events and descriptions that support your motif.

Narrative essays also share some features with analytical essays, in which you derive meaning from a book, film, or other media. But narrative essays work differently—you’re not trying to draw meaning from an existing text, but rather using an event you’ve experienced to convey meaning. In an analytical essay, you examine narrative, whereas in a narrative essay you create narrative.

The structure of a narrative essay is also a bit different than other essays. You’ll generally be getting your point across chronologically as opposed to grouping together specific arguments in paragraphs or sections. To return to the example of an essay discussing your first day of high school and how it impacted the shaping of your identity, it would be weird to put the events out of order, even if not knowing what to do after lunch feels like a stronger idea than choosing where to sit. Instead of organizing to deliver your information based on maximum impact, you’ll be telling your story as it happened, using concrete details to reinforce your theme.

3 Great Narrative Essay Examples

One of the best ways to learn how to write a narrative essay is to look at a great narrative essay sample. Let’s take a look at some truly stellar narrative essay examples and dive into what exactly makes them work so well.

A Ticket to the Fair by David Foster Wallace

Today is Press Day at the Illinois State Fair in Springfield, and I’m supposed to be at the fairgrounds by 9:00 A.M. to get my credentials. I imagine credentials to be a small white card in the band of a fedora. I’ve never been considered press before. My real interest in credentials is getting into rides and shows for free. I’m fresh in from the East Coast, for an East Coast magazine. Why exactly they’re interested in the Illinois State Fair remains unclear to me. I suspect that every so often editors at East Coast magazines slap their foreheads and remember that about 90 percent of the United States lies between the coasts, and figure they’ll engage somebody to do pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and heartlandish. I think they asked me to do this because I grew up here, just a couple hours’ drive from downstate Springfield. I never did go to the state fair, though—I pretty much topped out at the county fair level. Actually, I haven’t been back to Illinois for a long time, and I can’t say I’ve missed it.

Throughout this essay, David Foster Wallace recounts his experience as press at the Illinois State Fair. But it’s clear from this opening that he’s not just reporting on the events exactly as they happened—though that’s also true— but rather making a point about how the East Coast, where he lives and works, thinks about the Midwest.

In his opening paragraph, Wallace states that outright: “Why exactly they’re interested in the Illinois State Fair remains unclear to me. I suspect that every so often editors at East Coast magazines slap their foreheads and remember that about 90 percent of the United States lies between the coasts, and figure they’ll engage somebody to do pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and heartlandish.”

Not every motif needs to be stated this clearly , but in an essay as long as Wallace’s, particularly since the audience for such a piece may feel similarly and forget that such a large portion of the country exists, it’s important to make that point clear.

But Wallace doesn’t just rest on introducing his motif and telling the events exactly as they occurred from there. It’s clear that he selects events that remind us of that idea of East Coast cynicism , such as when he realizes that the Help Me Grow tent is standing on top of fake grass that is killing the real grass beneath, when he realizes the hypocrisy of craving a corn dog when faced with a real, suffering pig, when he’s upset for his friend even though he’s not the one being sexually harassed, and when he witnesses another East Coast person doing something he wouldn’t dare to do.

Wallace is literally telling the audience exactly what happened, complete with dates and timestamps for when each event occurred. But he’s also choosing those events with a purpose—he doesn’t focus on details that don’t serve his motif. That’s why he discusses the experiences of people, how the smells are unappealing to him, and how all the people he meets, in cowboy hats, overalls, or “black spandex that looks like cheesecake leotards,” feel almost alien to him.

All of these details feed back into the throughline of East Coast thinking that Wallace introduces in the first paragraph. He also refers back to it in the essay’s final paragraph, stating:

At last, an overarching theory blooms inside my head: megalopolitan East Coasters’ summer treats and breaks and literally ‘getaways,’ flights-from—from crowds, noise, heat, dirt, the stress of too many sensory choices….The East Coast existential treat is escape from confines and stimuli—quiet, rustic vistas that hold still, turn inward, turn away. Not so in the rural Midwest. Here you’re pretty much away all the time….Something in a Midwesterner sort of actuates , deep down, at a public event….The real spectacle that draws us here is us.

Throughout this journey, Wallace has tried to demonstrate how the East Coast thinks about the Midwest, ultimately concluding that they are captivated by the Midwest’s less stimuli-filled life, but that the real reason they are interested in events like the Illinois State Fair is that they are, in some ways, a means of looking at the East Coast in a new, estranging way.

The reason this works so well is that Wallace has carefully chosen his examples, outlined his motif and themes in the first paragraph, and eventually circled back to the original motif with a clearer understanding of his original point.

When outlining your own narrative essay, try to do the same. Start with a theme, build upon it with examples, and return to it in the end with an even deeper understanding of the original issue. You don’t need this much space to explore a theme, either—as we’ll see in the next example, a strong narrative essay can also be very short.

Death of a Moth by Virginia Woolf

After a time, tired by his dancing apparently, he settled on the window ledge in the sun, and, the queer spectacle being at an end, I forgot about him. Then, looking up, my eye was caught by him. He was trying to resume his dancing, but seemed either so stiff or so awkward that he could only flutter to the bottom of the window-pane; and when he tried to fly across it he failed. Being intent on other matters I watched these futile attempts for a time without thinking, unconsciously waiting for him to resume his flight, as one waits for a machine, that has stopped momentarily, to start again without considering the reason of its failure. After perhaps a seventh attempt he slipped from the wooden ledge and fell, fluttering his wings, on to his back on the window sill. The helplessness of his attitude roused me. It flashed upon me that he was in difficulties; he could no longer raise himself; his legs struggled vainly. But, as I stretched out a pencil, meaning to help him to right himself, it came over me that the failure and awkwardness were the approach of death. I laid the pencil down again.

In this essay, Virginia Woolf explains her encounter with a dying moth. On surface level, this essay is just a recounting of an afternoon in which she watched a moth die—it’s even established in the title. But there’s more to it than that. Though Woolf does not begin her essay with as clear a motif as Wallace, it’s not hard to pick out the evidence she uses to support her point, which is that the experience of this moth is also the human experience.

In the title, Woolf tells us this essay is about death. But in the first paragraph, she seems to mostly be discussing life—the moth is “content with life,” people are working in the fields, and birds are flying. However, she mentions that it is mid-September and that the fields were being plowed. It’s autumn and it’s time for the harvest; the time of year in which many things die.

In this short essay, she chronicles the experience of watching a moth seemingly embody life, then die. Though this essay is literally about a moth, it’s also about a whole lot more than that. After all, moths aren’t the only things that die—Woolf is also reflecting on her own mortality, as well as the mortality of everything around her.

At its core, the essay discusses the push and pull of life and death, not in a way that’s necessarily sad, but in a way that is accepting of both. Woolf begins by setting up the transitional fall season, often associated with things coming to an end, and raises the ideas of pleasure, vitality, and pity.

At one point, Woolf tries to help the dying moth, but reconsiders, as it would interfere with the natural order of the world. The moth’s death is part of the natural order of the world, just like fall, just like her own eventual death.

All these themes are set up in the beginning and explored throughout the essay’s narrative. Though Woolf doesn’t directly state her theme, she reinforces it by choosing a small, isolated event—watching a moth die—and illustrating her point through details.

With this essay, we can see that you don’t need a big, weird, exciting event to discuss an important meaning. Woolf is able to explore complicated ideas in a short essay by being deliberate about what details she includes, just as you can be in your own essays.

Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin

On the twenty-ninth of July, in 1943, my father died. On the same day, a few hours later, his last child was born. Over a month before this, while all our energies were concentrated in waiting for these events, there had been, in Detroit, one of the bloodiest race riots of the century. A few hours after my father’s funeral, while he lay in state in the undertaker’s chapel, a race riot broke out in Harlem. On the morning of the third of August, we drove my father to the graveyard through a wilderness of smashed plate glass.

Like Woolf, Baldwin does not lay out his themes in concrete terms—unlike Wallace, there’s no clear sentence that explains what he’ll be talking about. However, you can see the motifs quite clearly: death, fatherhood, struggle, and race.

Throughout the narrative essay, Baldwin discusses the circumstances of his father’s death, including his complicated relationship with his father. By introducing those motifs in the first paragraph, the reader understands that everything discussed in the essay will come back to those core ideas. When Baldwin talks about his experience with a white teacher taking an interest in him and his father’s resistance to that, he is also talking about race and his father’s death. When he talks about his father’s death, he is also talking about his views on race. When he talks about his encounters with segregation and racism, he is talking, in part, about his father.

Because his father was a hard, uncompromising man, Baldwin struggles to reconcile the knowledge that his father was right about many things with his desire to not let that hardness consume him, as well.

Baldwin doesn’t explicitly state any of this, but his writing so often touches on the same motifs that it becomes clear he wants us to think about all these ideas in conversation with one another.

At the end of the essay, Baldwin makes it more clear:

This fight begins, however, in the heart and it had now been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair. This intimation made my heart heavy and, now that my father was irrecoverable, I wished that he had been beside me so that I could have searched his face for the answers which only the future would give me now.

Here, Baldwin ties together the themes and motifs into one clear statement: that he must continue to fight and recognize injustice, especially racial injustice, just as his father did. But unlike his father, he must do it beginning with himself—he must not let himself be closed off to the world as his father was. And yet, he still wishes he had his father for guidance, even as he establishes that he hopes to be a different man than his father.

In this essay, Baldwin loads the front of the essay with his motifs, and, through his narrative, weaves them together into a theme. In the end, he comes to a conclusion that connects all of those things together and leaves the reader with a lasting impression of completion—though the elements may have been initially disparate, in the end everything makes sense.

You can replicate this tactic of introducing seemingly unattached ideas and weaving them together in your own essays. By introducing those motifs, developing them throughout, and bringing them together in the end, you can demonstrate to your reader how all of them are related. However, it’s especially important to be sure that your motifs and clear and consistent throughout your essay so that the conclusion feels earned and consistent—if not, readers may feel mislead.

5 Key Tips for Writing Narrative Essays

Narrative essays can be a lot of fun to write since they’re so heavily based on creativity. But that can also feel intimidating—sometimes it’s easier to have strict guidelines than to have to make it all up yourself. Here are a few tips to keep your narrative essay feeling strong and fresh.

Develop Strong Motifs

Motifs are the foundation of a narrative essay . What are you trying to say? How can you say that using specific symbols or events? Those are your motifs.

In the same way that an argumentative essay’s body should support its thesis, the body of your narrative essay should include motifs that support your theme.

Try to avoid cliches, as these will feel tired to your readers. Instead of roses to symbolize love, try succulents. Instead of the ocean representing some vast, unknowable truth, try the depths of your brother’s bedroom. Keep your language and motifs fresh and your essay will be even stronger!

Use First-Person Perspective

In many essays, you’re expected to remove yourself so that your points stand on their own. Not so in a narrative essay—in this case, you want to make use of your own perspective.

Sometimes a different perspective can make your point even stronger. If you want someone to identify with your point of view, it may be tempting to choose a second-person perspective. However, be sure you really understand the function of second-person; it’s very easy to put a reader off if the narration isn’t expertly deployed.

If you want a little bit of distance, third-person perspective may be okay. But be careful—too much distance and your reader may feel like the narrative lacks truth.

That’s why first-person perspective is the standard. It keeps you, the writer, close to the narrative, reminding the reader that it really happened. And because you really know what happened and how, you’re free to inject your own opinion into the story without it detracting from your point, as it would in a different type of essay.

Stick to the Truth

Your essay should be true. However, this is a creative essay, and it’s okay to embellish a little. Rarely in life do we experience anything with a clear, concrete meaning the way somebody in a book might. If you flub the details a little, it’s okay—just don’t make them up entirely.

Also, nobody expects you to perfectly recall details that may have happened years ago. You may have to reconstruct dialog from your memory and your imagination. That’s okay, again, as long as you aren’t making it up entirely and assigning made-up statements to somebody.

Dialog is a powerful tool. A good conversation can add flavor and interest to a story, as we saw demonstrated in David Foster Wallace’s essay. As previously mentioned, it’s okay to flub it a little, especially because you’re likely writing about an experience you had without knowing that you’d be writing about it later.

However, don’t rely too much on it. Your narrative essay shouldn’t be told through people explaining things to one another; the motif comes through in the details. Dialog can be one of those details, but it shouldn’t be the only one.

Use Sensory Descriptions

Because a narrative essay is a story, you can use sensory details to make your writing more interesting. If you’re describing a particular experience, you can go into detail about things like taste, smell, and hearing in a way that you probably wouldn’t do in any other essay style.

These details can tie into your overall motifs and further your point. Woolf describes in great detail what she sees while watching the moth, giving us the sense that we, too, are watching the moth. In Wallace’s essay, he discusses the sights, sounds, and smells of the Illinois State Fair to help emphasize his point about its strangeness. And in Baldwin’s essay, he describes shattered glass as a “wilderness,” and uses the feelings of his body to describe his mental state.

All these descriptions anchor us not only in the story, but in the motifs and themes as well. One of the tools of a writer is making the reader feel as you felt, and sensory details help you achieve that.

What’s Next?

Looking to brush up on your essay-writing capabilities before the ACT? This guide to ACT English will walk you through some of the best strategies and practice questions to get you prepared!

Part of practicing for the ACT is ensuring your word choice and diction are on point. Check out this guide to some of the most common errors on the ACT English section to be sure that you're not making these common mistakes!

A solid understanding of English principles will help you make an effective point in a narrative essay, and you can get that understanding through taking a rigorous assortment of high school English classes !

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Melissa Brinks graduated from the University of Washington in 2014 with a Bachelor's in English with a creative writing emphasis. She has spent several years tutoring K-12 students in many subjects, including in SAT prep, to help them prepare for their college education.

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Long Text Generator Copy and Paste

In the realm of digital content creation, efficiency and creativity often go hand in hand. Whether you’re a designer, developer, or content creator, having access to a reliable long text generator can significantly streamline your workflow. These tools not only save time but also provide versatile solutions for generating substantial amounts of text with minimal effort.

What is a Long Text Generator?

A long text generator is a tool designed to produce large blocks of text quickly. It’s commonly used in various fields such as web development, graphic design, and publishing to generate placeholder content or to fill spaces in prototypes and layouts. These generators can create paragraphs, articles, or even entire books of text, depending on the user’s needs.

How Does a Long Text Generator Work?

Long text generators typically operate based on algorithms that randomly generate sentences or paragraphs. Some advanced generators may even use artificial intelligence to mimic natural language patterns more closely. Users can usually customize parameters such as the length of the text, the number of paragraphs, and sometimes the style or tone of the generated content.

Benefits of Using a Long Text Generator:

• Time Efficiency : Saves considerable time by automating the process of generating lengthy content.
• Content Filling : Useful for filling mockups, templates, or websites with realistic-looking content.
• Creative Flexibility : Allows users to focus more on design or layout by quickly inserting placeholder text.
• Consistency : Ensures consistent formatting and structure throughout the content creation process.
• Versatility : Can generate text in multiple languages or styles, catering to diverse project needs.

How to Use a Long Text Generator:

• Input Specifications : Enter parameters such as text length, number of paragraphs, and style preferences.
• Generate Text : Click on the generate button to produce the desired amount of text.
• Copy and Paste : Simply copy the generated text and paste it into your document, website, or design mockup.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):

Q1: Is the text generated by these tools readable and grammatically correct?

A1: Yes, most long text generators strive to produce text that is grammatically correct and readable. However, it’s recommended to review and edit the content for specific requirements.

Q2: Can I customize the generated text to match a specific tone or style?

A2: Some advanced generators allow customization of style and tone parameters. Check the features of the tool you’re using for such options.

Q3: Are there long text generators available for different languages?

A3: Yes, many text generators support multiple languages, allowing users to generate text in languages other than English.

Q4: Are long text generators free to use?

A4: Many basic long text generators are free to use. However, advanced features or commercial use may require a paid subscription or purchase.

Q5: Are there any legal implications of using generated text in commercial projects?

A5: It’s essential to check the terms of service of the generator tool and ensure that you have the right to use the generated text for your specific purposes, especially in commercial projects.

A long text generator is a valuable tool for anyone involved in digital content creation. Whether you’re designing a website, creating a mockup, or testing a layout, these tools can significantly enhance productivity and creativity. By automating the process of generating content, they allow users to focus more on the quality and aesthetics of their projects.

Using a long text generator copy and paste tool can streamline your workflow and help you achieve impressive results with minimal effort. Experiment with different tools to find one that best suits your needs and enhances your creative process.

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AI Text Summarizer

Use AI to Summarize Long Text for Saving Time and Reading Faster.

How to Use Text Summarizer

Paste or type the long text you want to summarize in the text box.

One-Click Summarize

Click the "Generate Summary" button to quickly get the text summary.

Preview and Use

Preview the generated text summary and copy it for use in your documents, reports, etc.

Key Features

• Supports intelligent summarization for texts in any language.
• Uses advanced AI algorithms to accurately capture key information.
• Advanced prompts allow you to generate: Summary, Key points, Highlights, Related questions and answers, and Keywords.
• One-click to generate, simple and efficient.

User Feedback

This text summarizer online tool tremendously increased my work efficiency. I often need to read long documents and now I can just generate a summary first with this tool to decide if I want to read the full text.

I really love the one-click text summarization function. Copying the summary is so convenient when I need to write the references section for my reports.

I use this text summarizer to help me parse long research papers in my field much faster. It’s been a total game changer for my literature reviews - I can now get through 3 times as many papers in the same amount of time.

Frequently Asked Questions

What type of documents can your tool summarize, will the generated summary accurately represent the full document, get summary now.

APOLOGY LETTER TOOL KIT SAMPLE LETTERS OF APOLOGY FOR YOU TO USE

Our apology letter tool kit is THE place to find free samples and examples of apology letters for almost every personal and business situation.

So if you need to say sorry, you've come to the right place!

While our main website has several apology letter templates, they may be too complicated for some people. They’re more suitable for serious infractions and situations and require a little more effort to customize them to make them fit your specific situation.

The apology letters you'll find in our tool kit below are much easier to use. You can simply copy & paste them and use the placeholders to personalize them to your liking in no time!

Personal Apology Tool Kit Letters

• Apology Letter for Wrongdoing or Mistake
• Addiction Apology Letter
• Apology for Sexual Harassment
• Apology for Email Sent by Mistake (Friend)
• Apology Letter for Lying
• Sorry Letter for Best Friend
• Apology Letter to Best Friend
• Apology Letter to a Friend or Acquaintance
• Emotional Sorry Letter for Boyfriend
• Emotional Sorry Letter for Girlfriend
• Apology for Late Response
• Apology for Verbal Abuse

Love & Marriage Tool Kit Letters

• A Wife Apology Letter
• Beautiful Apology Letter To Wife
• Apology Letter To A Lover
• 4 Apology Letters for Being Jealous
• Forgiveness: Apology Letter to my Daughter

Business Related Tool Kit Letters

• Apology Letter to Team Members
• Apology Letter to Hotel Guest
• Apology Letter for A Company Mistake
• Apology Letter for Technical Issues
• Apology Letter for Not Coming To Work
• Email Sent by Mistake: Apology for Business Relationships
• Apology Letter for Misrepresentation
• Letter of Apology to Customer
• Customer Apology Email
• Proactive Apology Email to Customer
• Business Apology Letter to Customer
• Customer Apology Letter for Inconvenience
• Apology for Bad Customer Service
• Apology for Delayed Response

Apologies Directed to People of Authority

• Apology Letter To Landlord, Saying Sorry to A Landlord
• Apology Letter To Supervisor for Absence
• Apology Letter to Principal
• Apology Letter to a Teacher from a Student
• Apology Letter to a Teacher from a Parent
• Apology Letter to a Substitute Teacher
• Sorry Letter for a Teacher | 4 Examples
• Apology Letter to the Court
• Apology Letter to a Police Officer

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

16 Strong College Essay Examples from Top Schools

What’s Covered:

• Common App Essays
• Why This College Essays
• Why This Major Essays
• Extracurricular Essays
• Overcoming Challenges Essays
• Community Service Essays
• Diversity Essays
• Political/Global Issues Essays
• Where to Get Feedback on Your Essays

Most high school students don’t get a lot of experience with creative writing, so the college essay can be especially daunting. Reading examples of successful essays, however, can help you understand what admissions officers are looking for.

In this post, we’ll share 16 college essay examples of many different topics. Most of the essay prompts fall into 8 different archetypes, and you can approach each prompt under that archetype in a similar way. We’ve grouped these examples by archetype so you can better structure your approach to college essays.

If you’re looking for school-specific guides, check out our 2022-2023 essay breakdowns .

Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Note: the essays are titled in this post for navigation purposes, but they were not originally titled. We also include the original prompt where possible.

The Common App essay goes to all of the schools on your list, unless those schools use a separate application platform. Because of this, it’s the most important essay in your portfolio, and likely the longest essay you’ll need to write (you get up to 650 words). 

The goal of this essay is to share a glimpse into who you are, what matters to you, and what you hope to achieve. It’s a chance to share your story. 

Learn more about how to write the Common App essay in our complete guide.

The Multiple Meanings of Point

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. (250-650 words)

Night had robbed the academy of its daytime colors, yet there was comfort in the dim lights that cast shadows of our advances against the bare studio walls. Silhouettes of roundhouse kicks, spin crescent kicks, uppercuts and the occasional butterfly kick danced while we sparred. She approached me, eyes narrowed with the trace of a smirk challenging me. “Ready spar!” Her arm began an upward trajectory targeting my shoulder, a common first move. I sidestepped — only to almost collide with another flying fist. Pivoting my right foot, I snapped my left leg, aiming my heel at her midsection. The center judge raised one finger. 

There was no time to celebrate, not in the traditional sense at least. Master Pollard gave a brief command greeted with a unanimous “Yes, sir” and the thud of 20 hands dropping-down-and-giving-him-30, while the “winners” celebrated their victory with laps as usual. 

Three years ago, seven-thirty in the evening meant I was a warrior. It meant standing up straighter, pushing a little harder, “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am”, celebrating birthdays by breaking boards, never pointing your toes, and familiarity. Three years later, seven-thirty in the morning meant I was nervous. 

The room is uncomfortably large. The sprung floor soaks up the checkerboard of sunlight piercing through the colonial windows. The mirrored walls further illuminate the studio and I feel the light scrutinizing my sorry attempts at a pas de bourrée, while capturing the organic fluidity of the dancers around me. “Chassé en croix, grand battement, pique, pirouette.” I follow the graceful limbs of the woman in front of me, her legs floating ribbons, as she executes what seems to be a perfect ronds de jambes. Each movement remains a negotiation. With admirable patience, Ms. Tan casts me a sympathetic glance.   

There is no time to wallow in the misery that is my right foot. Taekwondo calls for dorsiflexion; pointed toes are synonymous with broken toes. My thoughts drag me into a flashback of the usual response to this painful mistake: “You might as well grab a tutu and head to the ballet studio next door.” Well, here I am Master Pollard, unfortunately still following your orders to never point my toes, but no longer feeling the satisfaction that comes with being a third degree black belt with 5 years of experience quite literally under her belt. It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers. 

But the appetite for new beginnings that brought me here doesn’t falter. It is only reinforced by the classical rendition of “Dancing Queen” that floods the room and the ghost of familiarity that reassures me that this new beginning does not and will not erase the past. After years spent at the top, it’s hard to start over. But surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become. In Taekwondo, we started each class reciting the tenets: honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet. 

The thing about change is that it eventually stops making things so different. After nine different schools, four different countries, three different continents, fluency in Tamil, Norwegian, and English, there are more blurred lines than there are clear fragments. My life has not been a tactfully executed, gold medal-worthy Taekwondo form with each movement defined, nor has it been a series of frappés performed by a prima ballerina with each extension identical and precise, but thankfully it has been like the dynamics of a spinning back kick, fluid, and like my chances of landing a pirouette, unpredictable. 

The first obvious strength of this essay is the introduction—it is interesting and snappy and uses enough technical language that we want to figure out what the student is discussing. When writing introductions, students tend to walk the line between intriguing and confusing. It is important that your essay ends up on the intentionally intriguing side of that line—like this student does! We are a little confused at first, but by then introducing the idea of “sparring,” the student grounds their essay.

People often advise young writers to “show, not tell.” This student takes that advice a step further and makes the reader do a bit of work to figure out what they are telling us. Nowhere in this essay does it say “After years of Taekwondo, I made the difficult decision to switch over to ballet.” Rather, the student says “It’s like being a white belt again — just in a leotard and ballet slippers.” How powerful! 

After a lot of emotional language and imagery, this student finishes off their essay with very valuable (and necessary!) reflection. They show admissions officers that they are more than just a good writer—they are a mature and self-aware individual who would be beneficial to a college campus. Self-awareness comes through with statements like “surrendering what you are only leads you to what you may become” and maturity can be seen through the student’s discussion of values: “honor, courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, courage, humility, and knowledge, and I have never felt that I embodied those traits more so than when I started ballet.”

Sparking Self-Awareness

Prompt: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (250-650 words)

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the garb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

First things first, this Common App essay is well-written. This student is definitely showing the admissions officers her ability to articulate her points beautifully and creatively. It starts with vivid images like that of the “rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free.” And because the prose is flowery (and beautiful!), the writer can get away with metaphors like “I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms” that might sound cheesy without the clear command of the English language that the writer quickly establishes.

In addition to being well-written, this essay is thematically cohesive. It begins with the simple introduction “Fire!” and ends with the following image: “When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.” This full-circle approach leaves readers satisfied and impressed.

While dialogue often comes off as cliche or trite, this student effectively incorporates her family members saying “Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” This is achieved through the apt use of the verb “taunted” to characterize the questioning and through the question’s thematic connection to the earlier image of the student as a rustic princess. Similarly, rhetorical questions can feel randomly placed in essays, but this student’s inclusion of the questions “Was I so dainty?” and “Was I that incapable?” feel perfectly justified after she establishes that she was pondering her failure.

Quite simply, this essay shows how quality writing can make a simple story outstandingly compelling. 

Why This College?

“Why This College?” is one of the most common essay prompts, likely because schools want to understand whether you’d be a good fit and how you’d use their resources.

This essay is one of the more straightforward ones you’ll write for college applications, but you still can and should allow your voice to shine through.

Learn more about how to write the “Why This College?” essay in our guide.

Prompt: How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying (650 words).

Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics, said, “caring is the human mode of being.” I have long been inspired by Sister Roach’s Five C’s of Caring: commitment, conscience, competence, compassion, and confidence. Penn both embraces and fosters these values through a rigorous, interdisciplinary curriculum and unmatched access to service and volunteer opportunities.

COMMITMENT. Reading through the activities that Penn Quakers devote their time to (in addition to academics!) felt like drinking from a firehose in the best possible way. As a prospective nursing student with interests outside of my major, I value this level of flexibility. I plan to leverage Penn’s liberal arts curriculum to gain an in-depth understanding of the challenges LGBT people face, especially regarding healthcare access. Through courses like “Interactional Processes with LGBT Individuals” and volunteering at the Mazzoni Center for outreach, I hope to learn how to better support the Penn LGBT community as well as my family and friends, including my cousin, who came out as trans last year.

CONSCIENCE. As one of the first people in my family to attend a four-year university, I wanted a school that promoted a sense of moral responsibility among its students. At Penn, professors challenge their students to question and recreate their own set of morals by sparking thought- provoking, open-minded discussions. I can imagine myself advocating for universal healthcare in courses such as “Health Care Reform & Future of American Health System” and debating its merits with my peers. Studying in an environment where students confidently voice their opinions – conservative or liberal – will push me to question and strengthen my value system.

COMPETENCE. Two aspects that drew my attention to Penn’s BSN program were its high-quality research opportunities and hands-on nursing projects. Through its Office of Nursing Research, Penn connects students to faculty members who share similar research interests. As I volunteered at a nursing home in high school, I hope to work with Dr. Carthon to improve the quality of care for senior citizens. Seniors, especially minorities, face serious barriers to healthcare that I want to resolve. Additionally, Penn’s unique use of simulations to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world application impressed me. Using computerized manikins that mimic human responses, classes in Penn’s nursing program allow students to apply their emergency medical skills in a mass casualty simulation and monitor their actions afterward through a video system. Participating in this activity will help me identify my strengths and areas for improvement regarding crisis management and medical care in a controlled yet realistic setting. Research opportunities and simulations will develop my skills even before I interact with patients.

COMPASSION. I value giving back through community service, and I have a particular interest in Penn’s Community Champions and Nursing Students For Sexual & Reproductive Health (NSRH). As a four-year volunteer health educator, I hope to continue this work as a Community Champions member. I am excited to collaborate with medical students to teach fourth and fifth graders in the city about cardiology or lead a chair dance class for the elders at the LIFE Center. Furthermore, as a feminist who firmly believes in women’s abortion rights, I’d like to join NSRH in order to advocate for women’s health on campus. At Penn, I can work with like-minded people to make a meaningful difference.

CONFIDENCE. All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence. Each student summarized their experiences at Penn as challenging but fulfilling. Although I expect my coursework to push me, from my conversations with current Quakers I know it will help me to be far more effective in my career.

The Five C’s of Caring are important heuristics for nursing, but they also provide insight into how I want to approach my time in college. I am eager to engage with these principles both as a nurse and as a Penn Quaker, and I can’t wait to start.

This prompt from Penn asks students to tailor their answer to their specific field of study. One great thing that this student does is identify their undergraduate school early, by mentioning “Sister Simone Roach, a theorist of nursing ethics.” You don’t want readers confused or searching through other parts of your application to figure out your major.

With a longer essay like this, it is important to establish structure. Some students organize their essay in a narrative form, using an anecdote from their past or predicting their future at a school. This student uses Roach’s 5 C’s of Caring as a framing device that organizes their essay around values. This works well!

While this essay occasionally loses voice, there are distinct moments where the student’s personality shines through. We see this with phrases like “felt like drinking from a fire hose in the best possible way” and “All of the Quakers that I have met possess one defining trait: confidence.” It is important to show off your personality to make your essay stand out. 

Finally, this student does a great job of referencing specific resources about Penn. It’s clear that they have done their research (they’ve even talked to current Quakers). They have dreams and ambitions that can only exist at Penn.

Prompt: What is it about Yale that has led you to apply? (125 words or fewer)

Coin collector and swimmer. Hungarian and Romanian. Critical and creative thinker. I was drawn to Yale because they don’t limit one’s mind with “or” but rather embrace unison with “and.” 

Wandering through the Beinecke Library, I prepare for my multidisciplinary Energy Studies capstone about the correlation between hedonism and climate change, making it my goal to find implications in environmental sociology. Under the tutelage of Assistant Professor Arielle Baskin-Sommers, I explore the emotional deficits of depression, utilizing neuroimaging to scrutinize my favorite branch of psychology: human perception. At Walden Peer Counseling, I integrate my peer support and active listening skills to foster an empathetic environment for the Yale community. Combining my interests in psychological and environmental studies is why I’m proud to be a Bulldog. 

This answer to the “Why This College” question is great because 1) the student shows their excitement about attending Yale 2) we learn the ways in which attending Yale will help them achieve their goals and 3) we learn their interests and identities.

In this response, you can find a prime example of the “Image of the Future” approach, as the student flashes forward and envisions their life at Yale, using present tense (“I explore,” “I integrate,” “I’m proud”). This approach is valuable if you are trying to emphasize your dedication to a specific school. Readers get the feeling that this student is constantly imagining themselves on campus—it feels like Yale really matters to them.

Starting this image with the Beinecke Library is great because the Beinecke Library only exists at Yale. It is important to tailor “Why This College” responses to each specific school. This student references a program of study, a professor, and an extracurricular that only exist at Yale. Additionally, they connect these unique resources to their interests—psychological and environmental studies.

Finally, we learn about the student (independent of academics) through this response. By the end of their 125 words, we know their hobbies, ethnicities, and social desires, in addition to their academic interests. It can be hard to tackle a 125-word response, but this student shows that it’s possible.

Why This Major?

The goal of this prompt is to understand how you came to be interested in your major and what you plan to do with it. For competitive programs like engineering, this essay helps admissions officers distinguish students who have a genuine passion and are most likely to succeed in the program. This is another more straightforward essay, but you do have a bit more freedom to include relevant anecdotes.

Learn more about how to write the “Why This Major?” essay in our guide.

Why Duke Engineering

Prompt: If you are applying to the Pratt School of Engineering as a first year applicant, please discuss why you want to study engineering and why you would like to study at Duke (250 words).

One Christmas morning, when I was nine, I opened a snap circuit set from my grandmother. Although I had always loved math and science, I didn’t realize my passion for engineering until I spent the rest of winter break creating different circuits to power various lights, alarms, and sensors. Even after I outgrew the toy, I kept the set in my bedroom at home and knew I wanted to study engineering. Later, in a high school biology class, I learned that engineering didn’t only apply to circuits, but also to medical devices that could improve people’s quality of life. Biomedical engineering allows me to pursue my academic passions and help people at the same time.

Just as biology and engineering interact in biomedical engineering, I am fascinated by interdisciplinary research in my chosen career path. Duke offers unmatched resources, such as DUhatch and The Foundry, that will enrich my engineering education and help me practice creative problem-solving skills. The emphasis on entrepreneurship within these resources will also help me to make a helpful product. Duke’s Bass Connections program also interests me; I firmly believe that the most creative and necessary problem-solving comes by bringing people together from different backgrounds. Through this program, I can use my engineering education to solve complicated societal problems such as creating sustainable surgical tools for low-income countries. Along the way, I can learn alongside experts in the field. Duke’s openness and collaborative culture span across its academic disciplines, making Duke the best place for me to grow both as an engineer and as a social advocate.

This prompt calls for a complex answer. Students must explain both why they want to study engineering and why Duke is the best place for them to study engineering.

This student begins with a nice hook—a simple anecdote about a simple present with profound consequences. They do not fluff up their anecdote with flowery images or emotionally-loaded language; it is what it is, and it is compelling and sweet. As their response continues, they express a particular interest in problem-solving. They position problem-solving as a fundamental part of their interest in engineering (and a fundamental part of their fascination with their childhood toy). This helps readers to learn about the student!

Problem-solving is also the avenue by which they introduce Duke’s resources—DUhatch, The Foundry, and Duke’s Bass Connections program. It is important to notice that the student explains how these resources can help them achieve their future goals—it is not enough to simply identify the resources!

This response is interesting and focused. It clearly answers the prompt, and it feels honest and authentic.

Why Georgia Tech CompSci

Prompt: Why do you want to study your chosen major specifically at Georgia Tech? (300 words max)

I held my breath and hit RUN. Yes! A plump white cat jumped out and began to catch the falling pizzas. Although my Fat Cat project seems simple now, it was the beginning of an enthusiastic passion for computer science. Four years and thousands of hours of programming later, that passion has grown into an intense desire to explore how computer science can serve society. Every day, surrounded by technology that can recognize my face and recommend scarily-specific ads, I’m reminded of Uncle Ben’s advice to a young Spiderman: “with great power comes great responsibility”. Likewise, the need to ensure digital equality has skyrocketed with AI’s far-reaching presence in society; and I believe that digital fairness starts with equality in education.

The unique use of threads at the College of Computing perfectly matches my interests in AI and its potential use in education; the path of combined threads on Intelligence and People gives me the rare opportunity to delve deep into both areas. I’m particularly intrigued by the rich sets of both knowledge-based and data-driven intelligence courses, as I believe AI should not only show correlation of events, but also provide insight for why they occur.

In my four years as an enthusiastic online English tutor, I’ve worked hard to help students overcome both financial and technological obstacles in hopes of bringing quality education to people from diverse backgrounds. For this reason, I’m extremely excited by the many courses in the People thread that focus on education and human-centered technology. I’d love to explore how to integrate AI technology into the teaching process to make education more available, affordable, and effective for people everywhere. And with the innumerable opportunities that Georgia Tech has to offer, I know that I will be able to go further here than anywhere else.

With a “Why This Major” essay, you want to avoid using all of your words to tell a story. That being said, stories are a great way to show your personality and make your essay stand out. This student’s story takes up only their first 21 words, but it positions the student as fun and funny and provides an endearing image of cats and pizzas—who doesn’t love cats and pizzas? There are other moments when the student’s personality shines through also, like the Spiderman reference.

While this pop culture reference adds color, it also is important for what the student is getting at: their passion. They want to go into computer science to address the issues of security and equity that are on the industry’s mind, and they acknowledge these concerns with their comments about “scarily-specific ads” and their statement that “the need to ensure digital equality has skyrocketed.” This student is self-aware and aware of the state of the industry. This aptitude will be appealing for admissions officers.

The conversation around “threads” is essential for this student’s response because the prompt asks specifically about the major at Georgia Tech and it is the only thing they reference that is specific to Georgia Tech. Threads are great, but this student would have benefitted from expanding on other opportunities specific to Georgia Tech later in the essay, instead of simply inserting “innumerable opportunities.”

Overall, this student shows personality, passion, and aptitude—precisely what admissions officers want to see!

Extracurricular Essay

You’re asked to describe your activities on the Common App, but chances are, you have at least one extracurricular that’s impacted you in a way you can’t explain in 150 characters.

This essay archetype allows you to share how your most important activity shaped you and how you might use those lessons learned in the future. You are definitely welcome to share anecdotes and use a narrative approach, but remember to include some reflection. A common mistake students make is to only describe the activity without sharing how it impacted them.

Learn more about how to write the Extracurricular Essay in our guide.

A Dedicated Musician

My fingers raced across the keys, rapidly striking one after another. My body swayed with the music as my hands raced across the piano. Crashing onto the final chord, it was over as quickly as it had begun. My shoulders relaxed and I couldn’t help but break into a satisfied grin. I had just played the Moonlight Sonata’s third movement, a longtime dream of mine. 

Four short months ago, though, I had considered it impossible. The piece’s tempo was impossibly fast, its notes stretching between each end of the piano, forcing me to reach farther than I had ever dared. It was 17 pages of the most fragile and intricate melodies I had ever encountered. 

But that summer, I found myself ready to take on the challenge. With the end of the school year, I was released from my commitment to practicing for band and solo performances. I was now free to determine my own musical path: either succeed in learning the piece, or let it defeat me for the third summer in a row. 

Over those few months, I spent countless hours practicing the same notes until they burned a permanent place in my memory, creating a soundtrack for even my dreams. Some would say I’ve mastered the piece, but as a musician I know better. Now that I can play it, I am eager to take the next step and add in layers of musicality and expression to make the once-impossible piece even more beautiful.

In this response, the student uses their extracurricular, piano, as a way to emphasize their positive qualities. At the beginning, readers are invited on a journey with the student where we feel their struggle, their intensity, and ultimately their satisfaction. With this descriptive image, we form a valuable connection with the student.

Then, we get to learn about what makes this student special: their dedication and work ethic. The fact that this student describes their desire to be productive during the summer shows an intensity that is appealing to admissions officers. Additionally, the growth mindset that this student emphasizes in their conclusion is appealing to admissions officers.

The Extracurricular Essay can be seen as an opportunity to characterize yourself. This student clearly identified their positive qualities, then used the Extracurricular Essay as a way to articulate them.

A Complicated Relationship with the School Newspaper

My school’s newspaper and I have a typical love-hate relationship; some days I want nothing more than to pass two hours writing and formatting articles, while on others the mere thought of student journalism makes me shiver. Still, as we’re entering our fourth year together, you could consider us relatively stable. We’ve learned to accept each other’s differences; at this point I’ve become comfortable spending an entire Friday night preparing for an upcoming issue, and I hardly even notice the snail-like speed of our computers. I’ve even benefitted from the polygamous nature of our relationship—with twelve other editors, there’s a lot of cooperation involved. Perverse as it may be, from that teamwork I’ve both gained some of my closest friends and improved my organizational and time-management skills. And though leaving it in the hands of new editors next year will be difficult, I know our time together has only better prepared me for future relationships.

This response is great. It’s cute and endearing and, importantly, tells readers a lot about the student who wrote it. Framing this essay in the context of a “love-hate relationship,” then supplementing with comments like “We’ve learned to accept each other’s differences” allows this student to advertise their maturity in a unique and engaging way. 

While Extracurricular Essays can be a place to show how you’ve grown within an activity, they can also be a place to show how you’ve grown through an activity. At the end of this essay, readers think that this student is mature and enjoyable, and we think that their experience with the school newspaper helped make them that way.

Participating in Democracy

Prompt: Research shows that an ability to learn from experiences outside the classroom correlates with success in college. What was your greatest learning experience over the past 4 years that took place outside of the traditional classroom? (250 words) 

The cool, white halls of the Rayburn House office building contrasted with the bustling energy of interns entertaining tourists, staffers rushing to cover committee meetings, and my fellow conference attendees separating to meet with our respective congresspeople. Through civics and US history classes, I had learned about our government, but simply hearing the legislative process outlined didn’t prepare me to navigate it. It was my first political conference, and, after learning about congressional mechanics during breakout sessions, I was lobbying my representative about an upcoming vote crucial to the US-Middle East relationship. As the daughter of Iranian immigrants, my whole life had led me to the moment when I could speak on behalf of the family members who had not emigrated with my parents.

As I sat down with my congresswoman’s chief of staff, I truly felt like a participant in democracy; I was exercising my right to be heard as a young American. Through this educational conference, I developed a plan of action to raise my voice. When I returned home, I signed up to volunteer with the state chapter of the Democratic Party. I sponsored letter-writing campaigns, canvassed for local elections, and even pursued an internship with a state senate campaign. I know that I don’t need to be old enough to vote to effect change. Most importantly, I also know that I want to study government—I want to make a difference for my communities in the United States and the Middle East throughout my career. 

While this prompt is about extracurricular activities, it specifically references the idea that the extracurricular should support the curricular. It is focused on experiential learning for future career success. This student wants to study government, so they chose to describe an experience of hands-on learning within their field—an apt choice!

As this student discusses their extracurricular experience, they also clue readers into their future goals—they want to help Middle Eastern communities. Admissions officers love when students mention concrete plans with a solid foundation. Here, the foundation comes from this student’s ethnicity. With lines like “my whole life had led me to the moment when I could speak on behalf of the family members who had not emigrated with my parents,” the student assures admissions officers of their emotional connection to their future field.

The strength of this essay comes from its connections. It connects the student’s extracurricular activity to their studies and connects theirs studies to their personal history.

Overcoming Challenges

You’re going to face a lot of setbacks in college, so admissions officers want to make you’re you have the resilience and resolve to overcome them. This essay is your chance to be vulnerable and connect to admissions officers on an emotional level.

Learn more about how to write the Overcoming Challenges Essay in our guide.

The Student Becomes the Master

”Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one. 

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we competed with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

This essay is great because it has a strong introduction and conclusion. The introduction is notably suspenseful and draws readers into the story. Because we know it is a college essay, we can assume that the student is one of the competitors, but at the same time, this introduction feels intentionally ambiguous as if the writer could be a competitor, a coach, a sibling of a competitor, or anyone else in the situation.

As we continue reading the essay, we learn that the writer is, in fact, the competitor. Readers also learn a lot about the student’s values as we hear their thoughts: “I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was.” Ultimately, the conflict and inner and outer turmoil is resolved through the “Same, but Different” ending technique as the student places themself in the same environment that we saw in the intro, but experiencing it differently due to their actions throughout the narrative. This is a very compelling strategy!

Growing Sensitivity to Struggles

Prompt: The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? (650 words)

“You ruined my life!” After months of quiet anger, my brother finally confronted me. To my shame, I had been appallingly ignorant of his pain.

Despite being twins, Max and I are profoundly different. Having intellectual interests from a young age that, well, interested very few of my peers, I often felt out of step in comparison with my highly-social brother. Everything appeared to come effortlessly for Max and, while we share an extremely tight bond, his frequent time away with friends left me feeling more and more alone as we grew older.

When my parents learned about The Green Academy, we hoped it would be an opportunity for me to find not only an academically challenging environment, but also – perhaps more importantly – a community. This meant transferring the family from Drumfield to Kingston. And while there was concern about Max, we all believed that given his sociable nature, moving would be far less impactful on him than staying put might be on me.

As it turned out, Green Academy was everything I’d hoped for. I was ecstatic to discover a group of students with whom I shared interests and could truly engage. Preoccupied with new friends and a rigorous course load, I failed to notice that the tables had turned. Max, lost in the fray and grappling with how to make connections in his enormous new high school, had become withdrawn and lonely. It took me until Christmas time – and a massive argument – to recognize how difficult the transition had been for my brother, let alone that he blamed me for it.

Through my own journey of searching for academic peers, in addition to coming out as gay when I was 12, I had developed deep empathy for those who had trouble fitting in. It was a pain I knew well and could easily relate to. Yet after Max’s outburst, my first response was to protest that our parents – not I – had chosen to move us here. In my heart, though, I knew that regardless of who had made the decision, we ended up in Kingston for my benefit. I was ashamed that, while I saw myself as genuinely compassionate, I had been oblivious to the heartache of the person closest to me. I could no longer ignore it – and I didn’t want to.

We stayed up half the night talking, and the conversation took an unexpected turn. Max opened up and shared that it wasn’t just about the move. He told me how challenging school had always been for him, due to his dyslexia, and that the ever-present comparison to me had only deepened his pain.

We had been in parallel battles the whole time and, yet, I only saw that Max was in distress once he experienced problems with which I directly identified. I’d long thought Max had it so easy – all because he had friends. The truth was, he didn’t need to experience my personal brand of sorrow in order for me to relate – he had felt plenty of his own.

My failure to recognize Max’s suffering brought home for me the profound universality and diversity of personal struggle; everyone has insecurities, everyone has woes, and everyone – most certainly – has pain. I am acutely grateful for the conversations he and I shared around all of this, because I believe our relationship has been fundamentally strengthened by a deeper understanding of one another. Further, this experience has reinforced the value of constantly striving for deeper sensitivity to the hidden struggles of those around me. I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story.

Here you can find a prime example that you don’t have to have fabulous imagery or flowery prose to write a successful essay. You just have to be clear and say something that matters. This essay is simple and beautiful. It almost feels like having a conversation with a friend and learning that they are an even better person than you already thought they were.

Through this narrative, readers learn a lot about the writer—where they’re from, what their family life is like, what their challenges were as a kid, and even their sexuality. We also learn a lot about their values—notably, the value they place on awareness, improvement, and consideration of others. Though they never explicitly state it (which is great because it is still crystal clear!), this student’s ending of “I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story” shows that they are constantly striving for improvement and finding lessons anywhere they can get them in life.

Community Service/Impact on the Community

Colleges want students who will positively impact the campus community and go on to make change in the world after they graduate. This essay is similar to the Extracurricular Essay, but you need to focus on a situation where you impacted others. 

Learn more about how to write the Community Service Essay in our guide.

Academic Signing Day

Prompt: What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?

The scent of eucalyptus caressed my nose in a gentle breeze. Spring had arrived. Senior class activities were here. As a sophomore, I noticed a difference between athletic and academic seniors at my high school; one received recognition while the other received silence. I wanted to create an event celebrating students academically-committed to four-years, community colleges, trades schools, and military programs. This event was Academic Signing Day.

The leadership label, “Events Coordinator,” felt heavy on my introverted mind. I usually was setting up for rallies and spirit weeks, being overlooked around the exuberant nature of my peers. 

I knew a change of mind was needed; I designed flyers, painted posters, presented powerpoints, created student-led committees, and practiced countless hours for my introductory speech. Each committee would play a vital role on event day: one dedicated to refreshments, another to technology, and one for decorations. The fourth-month planning was a laborious joy, but I was still fearful of being in the spotlight. Being acknowledged by hundreds of people was new to me.     

The day was here. Parents filled the stands of the multi-purpose room. The atmosphere was tense; I could feel the angst building in my throat, worried about the impression I would leave. Applause followed each of the 400 students as they walked to their college table, indicating my time to speak. 

I walked up to the stand, hands clammy, expression tranquil, my words echoing to the audience. I thought my speech would be met by the sounds of crickets; instead, smiles lit up the stands, realizing my voice shone through my actions. I was finally coming out of my shell. The floor was met by confetti as I was met by the sincerity of staff, students, and parents, solidifying the event for years to come. 

Academic students were no longer overshadowed. Their accomplishments were equally recognized to their athletic counterparts. The school culture of athletics over academics was no longer imbalanced. Now, every time I smell eucalyptus, it is a friendly reminder that on Academic Signing Day, not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.

This essay answers the prompt nicely because the student describes a contribution with a lasting legacy. Academic Signing Day will affect this high school in the future and it affected this student’s self-development—an idea summed up nicely with their last phrase “not only were academic students in the spotlight but so was my voice.”

With Community Service essays, students sometimes take small contributions and stretch them. And, oftentimes, the stretch is very obvious. Here, the student shows us that Academic Signing Day actually mattered by mentioning four months of planning and hundreds of students and parents. They also make their involvement in Academic Signing Day clear—it was their idea and they were in charge, and that’s why they gave the introductory speech.

Use this response as an example of the type of focused contribution that makes for a convincing Community Service Essay.

Climate Change Rally

Prompt: What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time? (technically not community service, but the response works)

Let’s fast-forward time. Strides were made toward racial equality. Healthcare is accessible to all; however, one issue remains. Our aquatic ecosystems are parched with dead coral from ocean acidification. Climate change has prevailed.

Rewind to the present day.

My activism skills are how I express my concerns for the environment. Whether I play on sandy beaches or rest under forest treetops, nature offers me an escape from the haste of the world. When my body is met by trash in the ocean or my nose is met by harmful pollutants, Earth’s pain becomes my own. 

Substituting coffee grinds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale. I often found performative activism to be ineffective when communicating climate concerns. My days of reposting awareness graphics on social media never filled the ambition I had left to put my activism skills to greater use. I decided to share my ecocentric worldview with a coalition of environmentalists and host a climate change rally outside my high school.

Meetings were scheduled where I informed students about the unseen impact they have on the oceans and local habitual communities. My fingers were cramped from all the constant typing and investigating of micro causes of the Pacific Waste Patch, creating reusable flyers, displaying steps people could take from home in reducing their carbon footprint. I aided my fellow environmentalists in translating these flyers into other languages, repeating this process hourly, for five days, up until rally day.  

It was 7:00 AM. The faces of 100 students were shouting, “The climate is changing, why can’t we?” I proudly walked on the dewy grass, grabbing the microphone, repeating those same words. The rally not only taught me efficient methods of communication but it echoed my environmental activism to the masses. The City of Corona would be the first of many cities to see my activism, as more rallies were planned for various parts of SoCal. My once unfulfilled ambition was fueled by my tangible activism, understanding that it takes more than one person to make an environmental impact.

Like with the last example, this student describes a focused event with a lasting legacy. That’s a perfect place to start! By the end of this essay, we have an image of the cause of this student’s passion and the effect of this student’s passion. There are no unanswered questions.

This student supplements their focused topic with engaging and exciting writing to make for an easy-to-read and enjoyable essay. One of the largest strengths of this response is its pace. From the very beginning, we are invited to “fast-forward” and “rewind” with the writer. Then, after we center ourselves in real-time, this writer keeps their quick pace with sentences like “Substituting coffee grounds as fertilizer, using bamboo straws, starting my sustainable garden, my individual actions needed to reach a larger scale.” Community Service essays run the risk of turning boring, but this unique pacing keeps things interesting.

Having a diverse class provides a richness of different perspectives and encourages open-mindedness among the student body. The Diversity Essay is also somewhat similar to the Extracurricular and Community Service Essays, but it focuses more on what you might bring to the campus community because of your unique experiences or identities.

Learn more about how to write the Diversity Essay in our guide.

A Story of a Young Skater

​​“Everyone follow me!” I smiled at five wide-eyed skaters before pushing off into a spiral. I glanced behind me hopefully, only to see my students standing frozen like statues, the fear in their eyes as clear as the ice they swayed on. “Come on!” I said encouragingly, but the only response I elicited was the slow shake of their heads. My first day as a Learn-to-Skate coach was not going as planned. 

But amid my frustration, I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater. At seven, I had been fascinated by Olympic performers who executed thrilling high jumps and dizzying spins with apparent ease, and I dreamed to one day do the same. My first few months on skates, however, sent these hopes crashing down: my attempts at slaloms and toe-loops were shadowed by a stubborn fear of falling, which even the helmet, elbow pads, and two pairs of mittens I had armed myself with couldn’t mitigate. Nonetheless, my coach remained unfailingly optimistic, motivating me through my worst spills and teaching me to find opportunities in failures. With his encouragement, I learned to push aside my fears and attack each jump with calm and confidence; it’s the hope that I can help others do the same that now inspires me to coach.

I remember the day a frustrated staff member directed Oliver, a particularly hesitant young skater, toward me, hoping that my patience and steady encouragement might help him improve. Having stood in Oliver’s skates not much earlier myself, I completely empathized with his worries but also saw within him the potential to overcome his fears and succeed. 

To alleviate his anxiety, I held Oliver’s hand as we inched around the rink, cheering him on at every turn. I soon found though, that this only increased his fear of gliding on his own, so I changed my approach, making lessons as exciting as possible in hopes that he would catch the skating bug and take off. In the weeks that followed, we held relay races, played “freeze-skate” and “ice-potato”, and raced through obstacle courses; gradually, with each slip and subsequent success, his fear began to abate. I watched Oliver’s eyes widen in excitement with every skill he learned, and not long after, he earned his first skating badge. Together we celebrated this milestone, his ecstasy fueling my excitement and his pride mirroring my own. At that moment, I was both teacher and student, his progress instilling in me the importance of patience and a positive attitude. 

It’s been more than ten years since I bundled up and stepped onto the ice for the first time. Since then, my tolerance for the cold has remained stubbornly low, but the rest of me has certainly changed. In sharing my passion for skating, I have found a wonderful community of eager athletes, loving parents, and dedicated coaches from whom I have learned invaluable lessons and wisdom. My fellow staffers have been with me, both as friends and colleagues, and the relationships I’ve formed have given me far more poise, confidence, and appreciation for others. Likewise, my relationships with parents have given me an even greater gratitude for the role they play: no one goes to the rink without a parent behind the wheel! 

Since that first lesson, I have mentored dozens of children, and over the years, witnessed tentative steps transform into powerful glides and tears give way to delighted grins. What I have shared with my students has been among the greatest joys of my life, something I will cherish forever. It’s funny: when I began skating, what pushed me through the early morning practices was the prospect of winning an Olympic medal. Now, what excites me is the chance to work with my students, to help them grow, and to give back to the sport that has brought me so much happiness. 

This response is a great example of how Diversity doesn’t have to mean race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, age, or ability. Diversity can mean whatever you want it to mean—whatever unique experience(s) you have to bring to the table!

A major strength of this essay comes in its narrative organization. When reading this first paragraph, we feel for the young skaters and understand their fear—skating sounds scary! Then, because the writer sets us up to feel this empathy, the transition to the second paragraph where the student describes their empathy for the young skaters is particularly powerful. It’s like we are all in it together! The student’s empathy for the young skaters also serves as an outstanding, seamless transition to the applicant discussing their personal journey with skating: “I was struck by how much my students reminded me of myself as a young skater.”

This essay positions the applicant as a grounded and caring individual. They are caring towards the young skaters—changing their teaching style to try to help the young skaters and feeling the young skaters’ emotions with them—but they are also appreciative to those who helped them as they reference their fellow staffers and parents. This shows great maturity—a favorable quality in the eyes of an admissions officer.

At the end of the essay, we know a lot about this student and are convinced that they would be a good addition to a college campus!

Finding Community in the Rainforest

Prompt: Duke University seeks a talented, engaged student body that embodies the wide range of human experience; we believe that the diversity of our students makes our community stronger. If you’d like to share a perspective you bring or experiences you’ve had to help us understand you better—perhaps related to a community you belong to, your sexual orientation or gender identity, or your family or cultural background—we encourage you to do so. Real people are reading your application, and we want to do our best to understand and appreciate the real people applying to Duke (250 words).

I never understood the power of community until I left home to join seven strangers in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Although we flew in from distant corners of the U.S., we shared a common purpose: immersing ourselves in our passion for protecting the natural world.

Back home in my predominantly conservative suburb, my neighbors had brushed off environmental concerns. My classmates debated the feasibility of Trump’s wall, not the deteriorating state of our planet. Contrastingly, these seven strangers delighted in bird-watching, brightened at the mention of medicinal tree sap, and understood why I once ran across a four-lane highway to retrieve discarded beer cans. Their histories barely resembled mine, yet our values aligned intimately. We did not hesitate to joke about bullet ants, gush about the versatility of tree bark, or discuss the destructive consequences of materialism. Together, we let our inner tree huggers run free.

In the short life of our little community, we did what we thought was impossible. By feeding on each other’s infectious tenacity, we cultivated an atmosphere that deepened our commitment to our values and empowered us to speak out on behalf of the environment. After a week of stimulating conversations and introspective revelations about engaging people from our hometowns in environmental advocacy, we developed a shared determination to devote our lives to this cause.

As we shared a goodbye hug, my new friend whispered, “The world needs saving. Someone’s gotta do it.” For the first time, I believed that someone could be me.

This response is so wholesome and relatable. We all have things that we just need to geek out over and this student expresses the joy that came when they found a community where they could geek out about the environment. Passion is fundamental to university life and should find its way into successful applications.

Like the last response, this essay finds strength in the fact that readers feel for the student. We get a little bit of backstory about where they come from and how they felt silenced—“Back home in my predominantly conservative suburb, my neighbors had brushed off environmental concerns”—, so it’s easy to feel joy for them when they get set free.

This student displays clear values: community, ecoconsciousness, dedication, and compassion. An admissions officer who reads Diversity essays is looking for students with strong values and a desire to contribute to a university community—sounds like this student!  

Political/Global Issues

Colleges want to build engaged citizens, and the Political/Global Issues Essay allows them to better understand what you care about and whether your values align with theirs. In this essay, you’re most commonly asked to describe an issue, why you care about it, and what you’ve done or hope to do to address it. 

Learn more about how to write the Political/Global Issues Essay in our guide.

Note: this prompt is not a typical political/global issues essay, but the essay itself would be a strong response to a political/global issues prompt.

Fighting Violence Against Women

Prompt: Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay. (250-650 words)

“One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.” 

– Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University. 

The air is crisp and cool, nipping at my ears as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky, starless. It is a Friday night in downtown Corpus Christi, a rare moment of peace in my home city filled with the laughter of strangers and colorful lights of street vendors. But I cannot focus. 

My feet stride quickly down the sidewalk, my hand grasps on to the pepper spray my parents gifted me for my sixteenth birthday. My eyes ignore the surrounding city life, focusing instead on a pair of tall figures walking in my direction. I mentally ask myself if they turned with me on the last street corner. I do not remember, so I pick up the pace again. All the while, my mind runs over stories of young women being assaulted, kidnapped, and raped on the street. I remember my mother’s voice reminding me to keep my chin up, back straight, eyes and ears alert. 

At a young age, I learned that harassment is a part of daily life for women. I fell victim to period-shaming when I was thirteen, received my first catcall when I was fourteen, and was nonconsensually grabbed by a man soliciting on the street when I was fifteen. For women, assault does not just happen to us— its gory details leave an imprint in our lives, infecting the way we perceive the world. And while movements such as the Women’s March and #MeToo have given victims of sexual violence a voice, harassment still manifests itself in the lives of millions of women across the nation. Symbolic gestures are important in spreading awareness but, upon learning that a surprising number of men are oblivious to the frequent harassment that women experience, I now realize that addressing this complex issue requires a deeper level of activism within our local communities. 

Frustrated with incessant cases of harassment against women, I understood at sixteen years old that change necessitates action. During my junior year, I became an intern with a judge whose campaign for office focused on a need for domestic violence reform. This experience enabled me to engage in constructive dialogue with middle and high school students on how to prevent domestic violence. As I listened to young men uneasily admit their ignorance and young women bravely share their experiences in an effort to spread awareness, I learned that breaking down systems of inequity requires changing an entire culture. I once believed that the problem of harassment would dissipate after politicians and celebrities denounce inappropriate behavior to their global audience. But today, I see that effecting large-scale change comes from the “small” lessons we teach at home and in schools. Concerning women’s empowerment, the effects of Hollywood activism do not trickle down enough. Activism must also trickle up and it depends on our willingness to fight complacency. 

Finding the solution to the long-lasting problem of violence against women is a work-in-progress, but it is a process that is persistently moving. In my life, for every uncomfortable conversation that I bridge, I make the world a bit more sensitive to the unspoken struggle that it is to be a woman. I am no longer passively waiting for others to let me live in a world where I can stand alone under the expanse of darkness on a city street, utterly alone and at peace. I, too, deserve the night sky.

As this student addresses an important social issue, she makes the reasons for her passion clear—personal experiences. Because she begins with an extended anecdote, readers are able to feel connected to the student and become invested in what she has to say.

Additionally, through her powerful ending—“I, too, deserve the night sky”—which connects back to her beginning— “as I walk under a curtain of darkness that drapes over the sky”—this student illustrates a mastery of language. Her engagement with other writing techniques that further her argument, like the emphasis on time—“gifted to me for my sixteenth birthday,” “when I was thirteen,” “when I was fourteen,” etc.—also illustrates her mastery of language.

While this student proves herself a good writer, she also positions herself as motivated and ambitious. She turns her passions into action and fights for them. That is just what admissions officers want to see in a Political/Global issues essay!

Where to Get Feedback on Your College Essays

Once you’ve written your college essays, you’ll want to get feedback on them. Since these essays are important to your chances of acceptance, you should prepare to go through several rounds of edits. 

Not sure who to ask for feedback? That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review resource. You can get comments from another student going through the process and also edit other students’ essays to improve your own writing. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools.  Find the right advisor for you  to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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65 Long Sentences in Literature

Almost all of the really long sentences are under 1,000 words. The six longest sentences (1,000+ words) are mostly a curiosity, just to see what is possible.

I hope students of writing can study these sentences to find inspiration. My advice on how to learn from them? Try these three practices:

1. Copy them exactly 2. Take them apart, analyze each part, and see how the engine works 3. Ape their form with different content

I also hope this list might be helpful for teachers and professors of writing, who want more lengthy sentence examples to show their students. If you want to teach short sentences, I’ve also compiled a list of those.

The longest sentence in English is also awesome. The longest sentence award goes to:

• Jonathan Coe’s The Rotter’s Club , 13,955 word sentence
• And for a runner-up: James Joyce, Ulysses, 4,391 word sentence

And there are even  one-sentence books  — actually, a few of them. But I’m not reposting an entire book.

And let’s end all this nonsense about how long sentences = run-on sentences. You can have a six-word run-on sentence (“I went shopping I ate donuts.”), while most of the sentences below are much, much longer than that and are not run-ons (except for a few examples like Jose Saramago).  But whether the sentence is grammatically correct isn’t nearly as important as whether the sentence is fun or beautiful.

I hope that a study of very long sentences will arm you with strategies that are almost as diverse as the sentences themselves, such as: starting each clause with the same word, tilting with dependent clauses toward a revelation at the end, padding with parentheticals, showing great latitude toward standard punctuation, rabbit-trailing away from the initial subject, encapsulating an entire life, and lastly, as this sentence is, celebrating the list.

What’s the definition of a long sentence? For my purposes, I’m defining it as more than a 100 words. I’ve cheated with a few beautiful sentences a few words short, because there is no sense in having an absolute and arbitrary rule, but more than 100 words was my guiding principle. I think any sentence more than 100 words is almost guaranteed to be complex, complicated, and enormous.

If you like this list, please check out this other writing resource at Bookfox:

• 17 Fantastic Examples of Sentence Repetitions

As far as improving the list, I’d love to make it more diverse . If you have suggestions of 100+ word sentences from the type of authors who aren’t represented here, I would love if you could post your example in the comments, or at least direct me to where I could find it.

Also, if you have a sentence that you love from a particular author, and you think it’s a better sentence than the one I’ve quoted, please, by all means, let’s have the sentences do battle! Post it and we’ll see whether it’s better.

And also, if you’re studying sentences, you probably would like advice on how to write a book. 

In which case you should definitely read my post on the best advice on how to write your novel.

As an editor, I’ve helped hundreds of writers start and finish their stories, so please learn from all that experience.

Long Sentence Examples in Literature

Vladimir nabokov, “the gift.” 96 words..

“As he crossed toward the pharmacy at the corner he involuntarily turned his head because of a burst of light that had ricocheted from his temple, and saw, with that quick smile with which we greet a rainbow or a rose, a blindingly white parallelogram of sky being unloaded from the van—a dresser with mirrors across which, as across a cinema screen, passed a flawlessly clear reflection of boughs sliding and swaying not arboreally, but with a human vacillation, produced by the nature of those who were carrying this sky, these boughs, this gliding façade.”

Jose Saramago, “Blindness.” 97 words. 

“On offering to help the blind man, the man who then stole his car, had not, at that precise moment, had any evil intention, quite the contrary, what he did was nothing more than obey those feelings of generosity and altruism which, as everyone knows, are the two best traits of human nature and to be found in much more hardened criminals than this one, a simple car-thief without any hope of advancing in his profession, exploited by the real owners of this enterprise, for it is they who take advantage of the needs of the poor.”

Vladimir Nabokov, “Lolita.” 99 words.

“My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three, and, save for a pocket of warmth in the darkest past, nothing of her subsists within the hollows and dells of memory, over which, if you can still stand my style (I am writing under observation), the sun of my infancy had set: surely, you all know those redolent remnants of day suspended, with the midges, about some hedge in bloom or suddenly entered and traversed by the rambler, at the bottom of a hill, in the summer dusk; a furry warmth, golden midges.”

Laurence Sterne, “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.” 107 words.

“The French are certainly misunderstood: — but whether the fault is theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves, or speaking with that exact limitation and precision which one would expect on a point of such importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested by us — or whether the fault may not be altogether on our side, in not understanding their language always so critically as to know “what they would be at” — I shall not decide; but ‘tis evident to me, when they affirm, “That they who have seen Paris, have seen every thing,” they must mean to speak of those who have seen it by day-light.”

E.B. White, “Stuart Little.” 107 words.

“In the loveliest town of all, where the houses were white and high and the elms trees were green and higher than the houses, where the front yards were wide and pleasant and the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky, in this loveliest of all towns Stuart stopped to get a drink of sarsaparilla.”

W.G. Sebald, “The Rings of Saturn.” 107 words.

“All I know is that I stood spellbound in his high-ceilinged studio room, with its north-facing windows in front of the heavy mahogany bureau at which Michael said he no longer worked because the room was so cold, even in midsummer; and that, while we talked of the difficulty of heating old houses, a strange feeling came upon me, as if it were not he who had abandoned that place of work but I, as if the spectacles cases, letters and writing materials that had evidently lain untouched for months in the soft north light had once been my spectacle cases, my letters and my writing materials.”

Saul Bellow, “The Adventures of Augie March.” 110 words.

“But it was the figure you cut as an employee, on an employee’s footing with the girls, in work clothes, and being of that tin-tough, creaking, jazzy bazaar of hardware, glassware, chocolate, chicken-feed, jewelry, drygoods, oilcloth, and song hits—that was the big thing; and even being the Atlases of it, under the floor, hearing how the floor bore up under the ambling weight of hundreds, with the fanning, breathing movie organ next door and the rumble descending from the trolleys on Chicago Avenue—the bloody-rinded Saturday gloom of wind-borne ash, and blackened forms of five-storey buildings rising up to a blind Northern dimness from the Christmas blaze of shops.”

Margaret Atwood, “The Handmaid’s Tale.” 111 words.

“She’s too young, it’s too late, we come apart, my arms are held, and the edges go dark and nothing is left but a little window, a very little window, like the wrong end of a telescope, like the window on a Christmas card, an old one, night and ice outside, and within a candle, a shining tree, a family, I can hear the bells even, sleigh bells, from the radio, old music, but through this window I can see, small but very clear, I can see her, going away from me, through the trees which are already turning, red and yellow, holding out her arms to me, being carried away.”

Virginia Woolf, “Mrs. Dalloway.” 116 words.

“It was not to them (not to Hugh, or Richard, or even to devoted Miss Brush) the liberator of the pent egotism, which is a strong martial woman, well nourished, well descended, of direct impulses, downright feelings, and little introspective power (broad and simple–why could not every one be broad and simple? she asked) feels rise within her, once youth is past, and must eject upon some object–it may be Emigration, it may be Emancipation; but whatever it be, this object round which the essence of her soul is daily secreted, becomes inevitably prismatic, lustrous, half looking glass, half precious stone; now carefully hidden in case people should sneer at it; now proudly displayed.”

William Faulkner, “That Evening Sun.” 118 words.

The streets are paved now, and the telephone and electric companies are cutting down more and more of the shade trees–the water oaks, the maples and locusts and elms–to make room for iron poles bearing clusters of bloated and ghostly and bloodless grapes, and we have a city laundry which makes the rounds on Monday morning, gathering the bundles of clothes into bright-colored, specially-made motor cars: the soiled wearing of a whole week now flees apparitionlike behind alert and irritable electric horns, with a long diminishing noise of rubber and asphalt like tearing silk, and even the Negro women who still take in white people’s washing after the old custom, fetch and deliver it in automobiles.

Jane Austen, “Northanger Abbey.” 119 words.

“Her plan for the morning thus settled, she sat quietly down to her book after breakfast, resolving to remain in the same place and the same employment till the clock struck one; and from habitude very little incommoded by the remarks and ejaculations of Mrs. Allen, whose vacancy of mind and incapacity for thinking were such, that as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her work, if she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must observe it aloud, whether there were anyone at leisure to answer her or not.”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Autumn of the Patriarch.” 121 words.

“She had said I’m tired of begging God to overthrow my son, because all this business of living in the presidential palace is like having the lights on all the time, sir, and she had said it with the same naturalness with which on one national holiday she had made her way through the guard of honor with a basket of empty bottles and reached the presidential limousine that was leading the parade of celebration in an uproar of ovations and martial music and storms of flowers and she shoved the basket through the window and shouted to her son that since you’ll be passing right by take advantage and return these bottles to the store on the corner, poor mother.”

Denis Johnson, “Dirty Wedding.” 121 words.

“I liked to sit up front and ride the fast ones all day long, I liked it when they brushed right up against the buildings north of the Loop and I especially liked it when the buildings dropped away into that bombed-out squalor a little farther north in which people (through windows you’d see a person in his dirty naked kitchen spooning soup toward his face, or twelve children on their bellies on the floor, watching television, but instantly they were gone, wiped away by a movie billboard of a woman winking and touching her upper lip deftly with her tongue, and she in turn erased by a—wham, the noise and dark dropped down around your head—tunnel) actually lived.”

William Faulkner, “Absolom, Absolom.” 122 words.

“From a little after two o’clock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that–a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Qunetin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.”

Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina.” 123 Words.

“It is true that Alexei Alexandrovich vaguely sensed the levity and erroneousness of this notion of his faith, and he knew that when, without any thought that his forgiveness was the effect of a higher power, he had given himself to his spontaneous feeling, he had experienced greater happiness than when he thought every minute, as he did now, that Christ lived in his soul, and that by signing papers he was fulfilling His will, but it was necessary for him to think that way, it was so necessary for him in his humiliation to possess at least an invented loftiness from which he, despised by everyone, could despise others, that he clung to his imaginary salvation as if it were salvation indeed.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov.” 125 words.

“And this Fyodor Pavlovich began to exploit; that is, he fobbed him off with small sums, with short-term handouts, until, after four years, Mitya, having run out of patience, came to our town a second time to finish his affairs with his parent, when it suddenly turned out, to his great amazement, that he already had precisely nothing, that it was impossible even to get an accounting, that he had already received the whole value of his property in cash from Fyodor Pavlovich and might even be in debt to him, that in terms of such and such deals that he himself had freely entered into on such and such dates, he had no right to demand anything more, and so on and so forth.”

Orhan Pamuk, “My Name is Red.” 127 words.

“We were two men in love with the same woman; he was in front of me and completely unaware of my presence as we walked through the turning and twisting streets of Istanbul, climbing and descending, we traveled like brethren through deserted streets given over to battling packs of stray dogs, passed burnt ruins where jinns loitered, mosque courtyards where angels reclined on domes to sleep, beside cypress trees murmuring to the souls of the dead, beyond the edges of snow-covered cemeteries crowded with ghosts, just out of sight of brigands strangling their victims, passed endless shops, stables, dervish houses, candle works, leather works and stone walls; and as we made ground, I felt I wasn’t following him at all, but rather, that I was imitating him.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Jazz Age.” 127 words.

“Sometimes, though, there is a ghostly rumble among the drums, an asthmatic whisper in the trombones that swings me back into the early twenties when we drank wood alcohol and every day in every way grew better and better, and there was a first abortive shortening of the skirts, and girls all looked alike in sweater dresses, and people you didn’t want to know said ‘Yes, we have no bananas’, and it seemed only a question of a few years before the older people would step aside and let the world be run by those who saw things as they were and it all seems rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings any more.”

Tom Wolfe, “A Sunday Kind of Love.” 128 words.

“All round them, ten, scores, it seems like hundreds, of faces and bodies are perspiring, trooping and bellying up the stairs with arterio-sclerotic grimaces past a showcase full of such novel items as Joy Buzzers, Squirting Nickels, Finger Rats, Scary Tarantulas and spoons with realistic dead flies on them, past Fred’s barbershop, which is just off the landing and has glossy photographs of young men with the kind of baroque haircuts one can get in there, and up onto 50 th Street into a madhouse of traffic and shops with weird lingerie and gray hair-dyeing displays in the windows, signs for free teacup readings and a pool-playing match between the Playboy Bunnies and Downey’s Showgirls, and then everybody pounds on toward the Time-Life Building, the Brill Building or NBC.”

E.L. Doctorow, “Homer and Langely.” 135 words.

“The houses over to Central Park West went first, they got darker as if dissolving into the dark sky until I couldn’t make them out, and then the trees began to lose their shape, and finally, this was toward the end of the season, maybe it was late February of that very cold winter, and all I could see were these phantom shapes of the white ice, that last light, went gray and then altogether black, and then all my sight was gone though I could hear clearly the scoot scut of the blades on ice, a very satisfying sound, a soft sound though full of intention, a deeper tone that you’d expect made by the skate blades, perhaps for having sounded the resonant basso of the water under the ice, scoot scut, scoot scut.”

Victor Hugo, “Les Miserables.” 136 words.

“While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan of melted brass and lead, destined to the bullet-mould smoked over a glowing brazier, while the sentinels watched, weapon in hand, on the barricade, while Enjolras, whom it was impossible to divert, kept an eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and some others, sought each other out and united as in the most peaceful of days of their conversations in their student life, and, in one corner of this wine-shop which had been converted into a casement, a couple of paces distant from the redoubt which they had built, with their carbines loaded and primed resting against the backs of their chairs, these fine young fellows, so close to a supreme hour, began to recite love verses.”

Annie Proulx, “Close Range.” 142 words.

“But Pake knew a hundred dirt road shortcuts, steering them through scabland and slope country, in and out of the tiger shits, over the tawny plain still grooved with pilgrim wagon ruts, into early darkness and the first storm laying down black ice, hard orange dawn, the world smoking, snaking dust devils on bare dirt, heat boiling out of the sun until the paint on the truck hood curled, ragged webs of dry rain that never hit the ground, through small-town traffic and stock on the road, band of horses in morning fog, two redheaded cowboys moving a house that filled the roadway and Pake busting around and into the ditch to get past, leaving junkyards and Mexican cafes behind, turning into midnight motel entrances with RING OFFICE BELL signs or steering onto the black prairie for a stunned hour of sleep.”

Philip Roth, “The Plot Against America.” 142 words.

“Elizabeth, New Jersey, when my mother was being raised there in a flat over her father’s grocery store, was an industrial port a quarter the size of Newark, dominated by the Irish working class and their politicians and the tightly knit parish life that revolved around the town’s many churches, and though I never heard her complain of having been pointedly ill-treated in Elizabeth as a girl, it was not until she married and moved to Newark’s new Jewish neighborhood that she discovered the confidence that led her to become first a PTA “grade mother,” then a PTA vice president in charge of establishing a Kindergarten Mothers’ Club, and finally the PTA president, who, after attending a conference in Trenton on infantile paralysis, proposed an annual March of Dimes dance on January 30 – President Roosevelt’s birthday – that was accepted by most schools.”

Jonathan Franzen, “The Corrections.” 148 words.

“He had time for one subversive thought about his parents’ Nordic Pleasurelines shoulder bags – either Nordic Pleasurelines sent bags like these to every booker of its cruises as a cynical means of getting inexpensive walk-about publicity or as a practical means of tagging the cruise participants for greater ease of handling at embarkation points or as a benign means of building espirit de corps; or else Enid and Alfred had deliberately saved the bags from some previous Nordic Pleasurelines cruise, and, out a misguided sense of loyalty, had chosen to carry them on their upcoming cruise as well; and in either case Chip was appalled by his parents’ willingness to make themselves vectors of corporate advertising – before he shouldered the bags himself and assumed the burden of seeing LaGuardia Airport and New York City and his life and clothes and body through the disappointed eyes of his parents.”

Evelyn Waugh, “Scoop.” 150 words.

“The Francmason weighed anchor, swung about, and steamed into the ochre hills, through the straits and out into the open sea while Corker recounted the heroic legends of Fleet Street; he told of the classic scoops and hoaxes; of the confessions wrung from hysterical suspects; of the innuendo and intricate misrepresentations, the luscious, detailed inventions that composed contemporary history; of the positive, daring lies that got a chap a rise of screw; how Wenlock Jakes, highest paid journalist of the United States, scooped the world with an eye-witness story of the sinking of the Lusitania four hours before she was hit; how [Sir Jocelyn] Hitchcock, the English Jakes, straddling over his desk in London, had chronicled day by day the horrors of the Messina earthquake; how Corker himself, not three months back, had had the good fortune to encounter a knight’s widow trapped by the foot between lift and landing.”

John Updike, “Rabbit, Run.” 163 words.

“But then they were married (she felt awful about being pregnant before but Harry had been talking about marriage for a while and anyway laughed when she told him in early February about missing her period and said Great she was terribly frightened and he said Great and lifted her put his arms around under her bottom and lifted her like you would a child he could be so wonderful when you didn’t expect it in a way it seemed important that you didn’t expect it there was so much nice in him she couldn’t explain to anybody she had been so frightened about being pregnant and he made her be proud) they were married after her missing her second period in March and she was still little clumsy dark-complected Janice Springer and her husband was a conceited lunk who wasn’t good for anything in the world Daddy said and the feeling of being alone would melt a little with a little drink.”

Henry James, “The Golden Bowl.” 165 words.

“She had got up with these last words; she stood there before him with that particular suggestion in her aspect to which even the long habit of their life together had not closed his sense, kept sharp, year after year, by the collation of types and signs, the comparison of fine object with fine object, of one degree of finish, of one form of the exquisite with another–the appearance of some slight, slim draped “antique” of Vatican or Capitoline halls, late and refined, rare as a note and immortal as a link, set in motion by the miraculous infusion of a modern impulse and yet, for all the sudden freedom of folds and footsteps forsaken after centuries by their pedestal, keeping still the quality, the perfect felicity, of the statue; the blurred, absent eyes, the smoothed, elegant, nameless head, the impersonal flit of a creature lost in an alien age and passing as an image in worn relief round and round a precious vase.”

Salman Rushdie, “The Satanic Verses.” 165 words.

“But at the time he had no doubt; what had taken him over was the will to live, unadulterated, irresistible, pure, and the first thing it did was to inform him that it wanted nothing to do with his pathetic personality, that half-reconstructed affair of mimicry and voices, it intended to bypass all that, and he found himself surrendering to it, yes, go on, as if he were a bystander in his own mind, in his own body, because it began in the very centre of his body and spread outwards, turning his blood to iron, changing his flesh to steel, except that it also felt like a fist that enveloped him from outside, holding him in a way that was both unbearably tight and intolerably gentle; until finally it had conquered him totally and could work his mouth, his fingers, whatever it chose, and once it was sure of its dominion it spread outward from his body and grabbed Gibreel Farishta by the balls.”

Jane Austen, “Emma.” 180 words.

“The charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune, of so many thousands as would always be called ten; a point of some dignity, as well as some convenience: the story told well; he had not thrown himself away — he had gained a woman of ten thousand pounds, or thereabouts; and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity — the first hour of introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice; the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress of the affair was so glorious — the steps so quick, from the accidental rencontre, to the dinner at Mr. Green’s, and the party at Mrs. Brown’s — smiles and blushes rising in importance — with consciousness and agitation richly scattered — the lady had been so easily impressed — so sweetly disposed — had in short, to use a most intelligible phrase, been so very ready to have him, that vanity and prudence were equally contented.”

Thomas Bernhard. “Correction.” 181 words.

“After a mild pulmonary infection, tended too little and too late, had suddenly turned into a severe pneumonia that took its toll of my entire body and laid me up for at least three months at nearby Wels, which has a hospital renowned in the field of so-called internal medicine, I accepted an invitation from Hoeller, a so-called taxidermist in the Aurach valley, not for the end of October, as the doctors urged, but for early in October, as I insisted, and then went on my own so-called responsibility straight to the Aurach valley and to Hoeller’s house, without even a detour to visit my parents in Stocket, straight into the so-called Hoeller garret, to begin sifting and perhaps even arranging the literary remains of my friend, who was also a friend of the taxidermist Hoeller, Roithamer, after Roithamer’s suicide, I went to work sifting and sorting the papers he had willed to me, consisting of thousands of slips covered with Roithamer’s handwriting plus a bulky manuscript entitled “About Altensam and everything connected with Altensam, with special attention to the Cone.”

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Marcel Proust, “Remembrance of Things Past.” 192 words.

“No doubt this astonishment is to some extent due to the fact that the other person on such occasions presents some new facet; but so great is the multiformity of each individual, so abundant the wealth of lines of face and body, so few of which leave any trace, once we are no longer in the presence of the other person, we depend on the arbitrary simplicity of our recollection, since the memory has selected some distinctive feature that had struck us, has isolated it, exaggerated it, making of a woman who has appeared to us tall a sketch in which her figure is elongated out of all proportion, or of a woman who has seemed to be pink-cheeked and golden-haired a pure “Harmony in Pink and Gold”, and the moment this woman is once again standing before us, all the other forgotten qualities which balance that one remembered feature at once assail us, in their confused complexity, diminishing her height, paling her cheeks, and substituting for what we came exclusively to seek, other features which we remember having noticed the first time and fail to understand why we so little expected to find them again.”

A.A. Milne, “Winnie-the-Pooh.” 194 words.

“In after-years he liked to think that he had been in Very Great Danger during the Terrible Flood, but the only danger he had really been in was in the last half-hour of his imprisonment, when Owl, who had just flown up, sat on a branch of his tree to comfort him, and told him a very long story about an aunt who had once laid a seagull’s egg by mistake, and the story went on and on, rather like this sentence, until Piglet who was listening out of his window without much hope, went to sleep quietly and naturally, slipping slowly out of the window towards the water until he was only hanging on by his toes, at which moment luckily, a sudden loud squawk from Owl, which was really part of the story, being what his aunt said, woke the Piglet up and just gave him time to jerk himself back into safety and say, “How interesting, and did she?” when—well, you can imagine his joy when at last he saw the good ship, The Brain of Pooh ( Captain , C. Robin; 1 st Mate , P. Bear) coming over the sea to rescue him.”

Miguel de Cervantes, “Don Quixote.” 200 words. 

“About this time, when some rain began to fall, Sancho proposed that they should shelter themselves in the fulling-mill, but Don Quixote had conceived such abhorrence for it, on account of what was past, that he would no means set foot within its wall; wherefore, turning to the right-hand, they chanced to fall in with a road different from that in which they had traveled the day before; they had not gone far, when the knight discovered a man riding with something on his head, that glittered like polished gold, and scarce had he descried this phenomenon, when turning to Sancho, “I find,” said he, “that every proverb is strictly true; indeed, all of them are apophthegms dictated by experience herself; more especially, that which says, “shut one door, and another will soon open”: this I mention, because, if last night, fortune shut against us the door we fought to enter, by deceiving us with the fulling-hammers; today another stands wide open, in proffering to use us, another greater and more certain adventure, by which, if I fail to enter, it shall be my own fault, and not imputed to my ignorance of fulling-mills, or the darkness of the night.”

Cormac McCarthy, “All the Pretty Horses.” 205 words.

“That night he dreamt of horses on a high plain where the spring rains had brought up the grass and the wildflowers out of the ground and the flowers ran all blue and yellow far as the eye could see and in the dream he was among the horses running and in the dream he himself could run with the horses and they coursed the young mares and fillies over the plain where their rich bay and their chestnut colors shone in the sun and the young colts ran with their dams and trampled down the flowers in a haze of pollen that hung in the sun like powdered gold and they ran he and the horses out along the high mesas where the ground resounded under their running hooves and they flowed and changed and ran and their manes and tails blew off them like spume and there was nothing else at all in that high world and they moved all of them in a resonance that was like a music among them and they were none of them afraid horse nor colt nor mare and they ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised.”

Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge.” 216 words.

“There he sat, watching his wife as she decorated the room with flowers for the greater honour of Dolly and Joseph Willet, who had gone out walking, and for whom the tea-kettle had been singing gaily on the hob full twenty minutes, chirping as never kettle chirped before; for whom the best service of real undoubted china, patterned with divers round-faced mandarins holding up broad umbrellas, was now displayed in all its glory; to tempt whose appetites a clear, transparent, juicy ham, garnished with cool green lettuce-leaves and fragrant cucumber, reposed upon a shady table, covered with a snow-white cloth; for whose delight, preserves and jams, crisp cakes and other pastry, short to eat, with cunning twists, and cottage loaves, and rolls of bread both white and brown, were all set forth in rich profusion; in whose youth Mrs V. herself had grown quite young, and stood there in a gown of red and white: symmetrical in figure, buxom in bodice, ruddy in cheek and lip, faultless in ankle, laughing in face and mood, in all respects delicious to behold—there sat the locksmith among all and every these delights, the sun that shone upon them all: the centre of the system: the source of light, heat, life, and frank enjoyment in the bright household world.”

Henry James, “Italian Hours.” 221 words.

“To dwell in a city which, much as you grumble at it, is after all very fairly a modern city; with crowds and shops and theatres and cafes and balls and receptions and dinner-parties, and all the modern confusion of social pleasures and pains; to have at your door the good and evil of it all; and yet to be able in half an hour to gallop away and leave it a hundred miles, a hundred years, behind, and to look at the tufted broom glowing on a lonely tower-top in the still blue air, and the pale pink asphodels trembling none the less for the stillness, and the shaggy-legged shepherds leaning on their sticks in motionless brotherhood with the heaps of ruin, and the scrambling goats and staggering little kids treading out wild desert smells from the top of hollow-sounding mounds; and then to come back through one of the great gates and a couple of hours later find yourself in the “world,” dressed, introduced, entertained, inquiring, talking about Middlemarch to a young English lady or listening to Neapolitan songs from a gentleman in a very low-cut shirt–all this is to lead in a manner a double life and to gather from the hurrying hours more impressions than a mind of modest capacity quite knows how to dispose of.”

Cormac McCarthy, “Blood Meridian” 245 words

“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained weddingveil and some in headgear of cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or saber done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses’ ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse’s whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen’s faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.”

Charles Dickens, “Barnaby Rudge.” 251 words.

“To none of these interrogatories, whereof every one was more pathetically delivered than the last, did Mrs Varden answer one word: but Miggs, not at all abashed by this circumstance, turned to the small boy in attendance—her eldest nephew—son of her own married sister—born in Golden Lion Court, number twenty-sivin, and bred in the very shadow of the second bell-handle on the right- hand door-post—and with a plentiful use of her pocket- handkerchief, addressed herself to him: requesting that on his return home he would console his parents for the loss of her, his aunt, by delivering to them a faithful statement of his having left her in the bosom of that family, with which, as his aforesaid parents well knew, her best affections were incorporated; that he would remind them that nothing less than her imperious sense of duty, and devoted attachment to her old master and missis, likewise Miss Dolly and young Mr Joe, should ever have induced her to decline that pressing invitation which they, his parents, had, as he could testify, given her, to lodge and board with them, free of all cost and charge, for evermore; lastly, that he would help her with her box upstairs, and then repair straight home, bearing her blessing and her strong injunctions to mingle in his prayers a supplication that he might in course of time grow up a locksmith, or a Mr Joe, and have Mrs Vardens and Miss Dollys for his relations and friends.”

David Foster Wallace, “Both Flesh and Not.” 258 words.

“There’s a medium-long exchange of groundstrokes, one with the distinctive butterfly shape of today’s power-baseline game, Federer and Agassi yanking each other from side to side, each trying to set up the baseline winner…until suddenly Agassi hits a hard heavy cross-court backhand that pulls Federer way out wide to his ad (=left) side, and Federer gets to it but slices the stretch backhand short, a couple feet past the service line, which of course is the sort of thing Agassi dines out on, and as Federer’s scrambling to reverse and get back to center, Agassi’s moving in to take the short ball on the rise, and he smacks it hard right back into the same ad corner, trying to wrong-foot Federer, which in fact he does — Federer’s still near the corner but running toward the centerline, and the ball’s heading to a point behind him now, where he just was, and there’s no time to turn his body around, and Agassi’s following the shot in to the net at an angle from the backhand side…and what Federer now does is somehow instantly reverse thrust and sort of skip backward three or four steps, impossibly fast, to hit a forehand out of his backhand corner, all his weight moving backward, and the forehand is a topspin screamer down the line past Agassi at net, who lunges for it but the ball’s past him, and it flies straight down the sideline and lands exactly in the deuce corner of Agassi’s side, a winner — Federer’s still dancing backward as it lands.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The House of the Seven Gables.” 280 words.

“The purity of his judicial character, while on the bench; the faithfulness of his public service in subsequent capacities; his devotedness to his party, and the rigid consistency with which he had adhered to its principles, or, at all events, kept pace with its organized movements; his remarkable zeal as president of a Bible society; his unimpeachable integrity as treasurer of a widow’s and orphan’s fund; his benefits to horticulture, by producing two much-esteemed varieties of the pear, and to agriculture, through the agency of the famous Pyncheon-bull; the cleanliness of his moral deportment, for a great many years past; the severity with which he had frowned upon, and finally cast off, an expensive and dissipated son, delaying forgiveness until within the final quarter of an hour of the young man’s life; his prayers at morning and eventide, and graces at meal-time; his efforts in furtherance of the temperance cause; his confining himself, since the last attack of the gout, to five diurnal glasses of old sherry wine; the snowy whiteness of his linen, the polish of his boots, the handsomeness of his gold-headed cane, the square and roomy fashion of his coat, and the fineness of its material, and, in general, the studied propriety of his dress and equipment; the scrupulousness with which he paid public notice, in the street, by a bow, a lifting of the hat, a nod, or a motion of the hand, to all and sundry his acquaintances, rich or poor; the smile of broad benevolence wherewith he made it a point to gladden the whole world;–what room could possibly be found for darker traits, in a portrait made up of lineaments like these?”

Nicolai Gogol, “The Overcoat” 282 words.

“Even at the hour when the grey St. Petersburg sky had quite dispersed, and all the official world had eaten or dined, each as he could, in accordance with the salary he received and his own fancy; when all were resting from the departmental jar of pens, running to and fro from their own and other people’s indispensable occupations, and from all the work that an uneasy man makes willingly for himself, rather than what is necessary; when officials hasten to dedicate to pleasure the time which is left to them, one bolder than the rest going to the theatre; another, into the street looking under all the bonnets; another wasting his evening in compliments to some pretty girl, the star of a small official circle; another — and this is the common case of all — visiting his comrades on the fourth or third floor, in two small rooms with an ante-room or kitchen, and some pretensions to fashion, such as a lamp or some other trifle which has cost many a sacrifice of dinner or pleasure trip; in a word, at the hour when all officials disperse among the contracted quarters of their friends, to play whist, as they sip their tea from glasses with a kopek’s worth of sugar, smoke long pipes, relate at times some bits of gossip which a Russian man can never, under any circumstances, refrain from, and, when there is nothing else to talk of, repeat eternal anecdotes about the commandant to whom they had sent word that the tails of the horses on the Falconet Monument had been cut off, when all strive to divert themselves, Akakiy Akakievitch indulged in no kind of diversion.”

Jules Verne, “The Floating Island.” 286 words.

“I have the honour to acquaint his Excellency the Governor of Floating Island, at this moment in a hundred and seven-seven degrees thirteen minutes east of the meridian of Greenwich, and in sixteen degrees fifty-four minutes south latitude, that during the night of the 31 st of December and the 1 st of January, the steamer Glen , of Glasgow, of three thousand five hundred tons, laden with wheat indigo, rice, and wine, a cargo of considerable value, was run into by Floating Island, belonging to the Floating Island Company, Limited, whose offices are at Madeleine Bay, Lower California, United States of America, although the steamer was showing the regulation lights, a white at the foremast, green at the starboard side, and red at the port side, and that having got clear after the collision she was met with the next morning thirty-five miles from the scene of the disaster, ready to sink on account of a gap in her port side, and that she did sink after fortunately putting her captain, his officers and crew on board the Herald , Her Britannic Majesty’s cruiser of the first-class under the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Edward Collison, who reports the fact to his Exellency Governor Cyrus Bikerstaff, requesting him to acknowledge the responsibility of the Floating Island Company, Limited, under the guarantee of the inhabitants of the said Floating Island, in favour of the owners of the said Glen , the value of which in hull, engines, and cargo amounts to the sum of twelve hundred thousand pounds sterling, that is six millions of dollars, which sum should be paid into the hands of the said Admiral Sir Edward Collinson, or in default he will forcibly proceed against the said Floating Island.”

Tolstoy, “War and Peace.” 307 words.

“But Count Rastopchin, who now shamed those who were leaving, now evacuated government offices, now distributed good-for-nothing weapons among the drunken riffraff, now took up icons, now forbade Augustin to evacuate relics and icons, now confiscated all private carts, now transported the hot-air balloon constructed by Leppich on a hundred and thirty-six carts, now hinted that he would burn Moscow, now told how he had burned his own house and wrote a proclamation to the French in which he solemnly reproached them for destroying his orphanage; now he assumed the glory of having burned Moscow, now he renounced it, now he ordered the people to catch all the spies and bring them to him, now he reproached the people for it, now he banished all the French from Moscow, now he allowed Mme Aubert-Chalmet, the center of all the French population of all Moscow, to remain in the city and ordered the old and venerable postmaster general Klyucharev, who had done nothing particularly wrong, to be arrested and exiled; now he gathered the people on the Three Hills to fight the French, now, in order to be rid of those same people, he turned them loose to murder a man and escaped through a back gate himself; now he said he would not survive the misfortune of Moscow, now he wrote French verses in an album about his part in the affair—this man did not understand the meaning of the event that was taking place, but only wanted to do something himself, to astonish someone or other, to accomplish something patriotically heroic, and, like a boy, frolicked over the majestic and inevitable event of the abandoning and burning of Moscow, and tried with his little hand now to encourage, now to stem the flow of the enormous current of people which carried him along with it.”

Vladimir Nabokov, “The Gift.” 309 words.

“He walked on toward the shop, but what he had just seen—whether because it had given him a kindred pleasure, or because it had taken him unawares and jolted him (as children in the hayloft fall into the resilient darkness)—released in him that pleasant something which for several days now had been at the murky bottom of his every thought, taking possession of him at the slightest provocation: my collection of poems has been published; and when as now, his mind tumbled like this, that is, when he recalled the fifty-odd poems that had just come out, he would skim in an instant the entire book, so that in an instantaneous mist of its madly accelerated music one could not make any readable sense of the flicking lines—the familiar words would rush past, swirling amid violent foam (whose seething was transformed into a mighty flowing motion if one fixed one’s eyes on it, as we used to do long ago, looking down at it from a vibrating mill bridge until the bridge turned into a ship’s stern: farewell!)—and this foam, and this flickering, and a separate verse that rushed past all alone, shouting in wild ecstasy from afar, probably calling him home, all of this, together with the creamy white of the cover, was merged in a blissful feeling of exceptional purity … What am I doing! he thought, abruptly coming to his senses and realizing that the first thing he had done upon entering the next shop was to dump the change he had received at the tobacconist’s onto the rubber islet in the middle of the glass counter, through which he glimpsed the submerged treasure of flasked perfumes, while the salesgirl’s gaze, condescending toward his odd behavior, followed with curiosity this absentminded hand paying for a purchase that had not yet been named.”

Martin Luther King, “A Letter from Birmingham Jail.” 310 words.

“But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you go forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”

Richard Wright, “Native Son.” 318 words.

“It sounded suddenly directly above his head and when he looked it was not there but went on tolling and with each passing moment he felt an urgent need to run and hide as though the bell were sounding a warning and he stood on a street corner in a red glare of light like that which came from the furnace and he had a big package in his arms so wet and slippery and heavy that he could scarcely hold onto it and he wanted to know what was in the package and he stopped near an alley corner and unwrapped in and the paper fell away and he saw—it was his own head—his own head lying with black face and half-closed eyes and lips parted with white teeth showing and hair wet with blood and the red glare grew brighter like light shining down from a red moon and red stars on a hot summer night and he was sweating and breathless from running and the bell clanged so loud that he could hear the iron tongue clapping against the metal sides each time it swung to and fro and he was running over a street paved with black coal and his shoes kicked tiny lumps rattling against tin cans and he knew that very soon he had to find some place to hide but there was no place and in front of him white people were coming to ask about the head from which the newspapers had fallen and which was now slippery with blood in his naked hands and he gave up and stood in the middle of the street in the red darkness and cursed the booming bell and the white people and felt that he did not give a damn what happened to him and when the people closed in he hurled the bloody head squarely into their faces dongdongdong….”

Malcolm Lowry, “Under the Volcano.” 328 words.

“It is a light blue moonless summer evening, but late, perhaps ten o’clock, with Venus burning hard in daylight, so we are certainly somewhere far north, and standing on this balcony, when from beyond along the coast comes the gathering thunder of a long many-engineered freight train, thunder because though we are separated by this wide strip of water from it, the train is rolling eastward and the changing wind veers for a moment from an easterly quarter, and we face east, like Swedenborg’s angels, under a sky clear save where far to the northeast over distant mountains whose purple has faded lies a mass of almost pure white clouds, suddenly, as by a light in an alabaster lamp, illumined from within by gold lightning, yet you can hear no thunder, only the roar of the great train with its engines and its wide shunting echoes as it advances from the hills into the mountains: and then all at once a fishing boat with tall gear comes running round the point like a white giraffe, very swift and stately, leaving directly behind it a long silver scalloped rim of wake, not visibly moving inshore, but now stealing ponderously beachward toward us, this scrolled silver rim of wash striking the shore first in the distance, then spreading all along the curve of the beach, while the floats, for these are timber driving floats, are swayed together, everything jostled and beautifully ruffled and stirred and tormented in this rolling sleeked silver, then little by little calm again, and you see the reflection of the remote white thunderclouds in the water, and now the lightening within the white clouds in deep water, as the fishing boat itself with a golden scroll of travelling light in its silver wake beside it reflected from the cabin vanishes round the headland, silence, and then again, within the white white distant alabaster thunderclouds beyond the mountains, the thunderless gold lightening in the blue evening, unearthly.”

Jonathan Franzen, “The Corrections.” 359 words.

“He began a sentence: “I am–” but when he was taken by surprise, every sentence became an adventure in the woods; as soon as he could no longer see the light of the clearing from which he’d entered, he would realize that the crumbs he’d dropped for bearings had been eaten by birds, silent deft darting things which he couldn’t quite see in the darkness but which were so numerous and swarming in their hunger that it seemed as if  they  were the darkness, as if the darkness weren’t uniform, weren’t an absence of light but a teeming corpuscular thing, and indeed when as a studious teenager he’d encountered the word “crepuscular” in McKay’s  Treasury of English Verse , the corpuscles of biology had bled into his understanding of the word, so that for his entire adult life he’d seen in twilight a corpuscularity, as of the graininess of the high-speed film necessary for photography under conditions of low ambient light, as of a kind of sinister decay; and hence the panic of a man betrayed deep in the woods whose darkness was the darkness of starlings blotting out the sunset or black ants storming a dead opossum, a darkness that didn’t just exit but actively  consumed  the bearings that he’d sensibly established for himself, lest he be lost; but in the instant of realizing he was lost, time became marvelously slow and he discovered hitherto unguessed eternities in the space between one word and the next, or rather he became trapped in that space between one word and the next, or rather he became trapped in that space between words and could only stand and watch as time sped on without him, the thoughtless boyish part of him crashing on out of sight blindly through the woods while he, trapped, the grownup Al, watched in oddly impersonal suspense to see if the panic-stricken little boy might, despite no longer knowing where he was or at what point he’d entered the woods of this sentence, still manage to blunder into the clearing where Enid was waiting for him, unaware of any woods–“packing my suitcase,” he heard himself say.”

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Marble Faun.” 374 words.

“When we have once known Rome, and left her where she lies, like a long-decaying corpse, retaining a trace of the noble shape it was, but with accumulated dust and a fungous growth overspreading all its more admirable features, left her in utter weariness, no doubt, of her narrow, crooked, intricate streets, so uncomfortably paved with little squares of lava that to tread over them is a penitential pilgrimage, so indescribably ugly, moreover, so cold, so alley-like, into which the sun never falls, and where a chill wind forces its deadly breath into our lungs,–left her, tired of the sight of those immense seven-storied, yellow-washed hovels, or call them palaces, where all that is dreary in domestic life seems magnified and multiplied, and weary of climbing those staircases, which ascend from a ground-floor of cook shops, cobblers’ stalls, stables, and regiments of cavalry, to a middle region of princes, cardinals, and ambassadors, and an upper tier of artists, just beneath the unattainable sky,–left her, worn out with shivering at the cheerless and smoky fireside by day, and feasting with our own substance the ravenous little populace of a Roman bed at night,–left her, sick at heart of Italian trickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man’s integrity had endured till now, and sick at stomach of sour bread, sour wine, rancid butter, and bad cookery, needlessly bestowed on evil meats,–left her, disgusted with the pretence of holiness and the reality of nastiness, each equally omnipresent,–left her, half lifeless from the languid atmosphere, the vital principle of which has been used up long ago, or corrupted by myriads of slaughters,–left her, crushed down in spirit with the desolation of her ruin, and the hopelessness of her future, –left her, in short, hating her with all our might, and adding our individual curse to the infinite anathema which her old crimes have unmistakably brought down,–when we have left Rome in such mood as this, we are astonished by the discovery, by and by, that our heart-strings have mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if it were more familiar, more intimately our home, than even the spot where we were born.”

Marcel Proust, “Swann’s Way.” 426 words.

“All these things and, still more than these, the treasures which had come to the church from personages who to me were almost legendary figures (such as the golden cross wrought, it was said, by Saint Eloi and presented by Dagobert, and the tomb of the sons of Louis the Germanic in porphyry and enamelled copper), because of which I used to go forward into the church when we were making our way to our chairs as into a fairy-haunted valley, where the rustic sees with amazement on a rock, a tree, a marsh, the tangible proofs of the little people’s supernatural passage — all these things made of the church for me something entirely different from the rest of the town; a building which occupied, so to speak, four dimensions of space — the name of the fourth being Time — which had sailed the centuries with that old nave, where bay after bay, chapel after chapel, seemed to stretch across and hold down and conquer not merely a few yards of soil, but each successive epoch from which the whole building had emerged triumphant, hiding the rugged barbarities of the eleventh century in the thickness of its walls, through which nothing could be seen of the heavy arches, long stopped and blinded with coarse blocks of ashlar, except where, near the porch, a deep groove was furrowed into one wall by the tower-stair; and even there the barbarity was veiled by the graceful gothic arcade which pressed coquettishly upon it, like a row of grown-up sisters who, to hide him from the eyes of strangers, arrange themselves smilingly in front of a countrified, unmannerly and ill-dressed younger brother; rearing into the sky above the Square a tower which had looked down upon Saint Louis, and seemed to behold him still; and thrusting down with its crypt into the blackness of a Merovingian night, through which, guiding us with groping finger-tips beneath the shadowy vault, ribbed strongly as an immense bat’s wing of stone, Théodore or his sister would light up for us with a candle the tomb of Sigebert’s little daughter, in which a deep hole, like the bed of a fossil, had been bored, or so it was said, “by a crystal lamp which, on the night when the Frankish princess was murdered, had left, of its own accord, the golden chains by which it was suspended where the apse is to-day and with neither the crystal broken nor the light extinguished had buried itself in the stone, through which it had gently forced its way.”

Jose Saramago, “Blindness.” 440 words.

“The next day, while still in bed, the doctor’s wife said to her husband, We have little food left, we’ll have to go out again, I thought that today I would go back to the underground food store at the supermarket, the one I went to on the first day, if nobody else has found it, we can get supplies for a week or two, I’m coming with you and we’ll ask one or two of the others to come along as well, I’d rather go with you alone, it’s easier, and there is less danger of getting lost, How long will you be able to carry the burden of six helpless people, I’ll manage as long as I can, but you are quite right, I’m beginning to get exhausted, sometimes I even wish I were blind as well, to be the same as the others, to have no more obligations than they have, We’ve got used to depending on you, If you weren’t there, it would be like being struck with a second blindness, thanks to your eyes we are a little less blind, I’ll carry on as long as I can, I can’t promise you more than that, One day, when we realize that we can no longer do anything good and useful we ought to have the courage simply to leave this world, as he said, Who said that, The fortunate man we met yesterday, I am sure that he wouldn’t say that today, there is nothing like real hope to change one’s opinions, He has that all right, long may it last, In your voice there is a tone which makes me think you are upset, Upset, why, As if something had been taken away from you, Are you referring to what happened to the girl when we were at that terrible place, Yes, Remember it was she who wanted to have sex with me, Memory is deceiving you, you wanted her, Are you sure, I was not blind, Well, I would have sworn that, You would only perjure yourself, Strange how memory can deceive us, In this case it is easy to see, something that is offered to us is more ours than something we had to conquer, But she didn’t ever approach me again, and I never approached her, If you wanted to, you could find each other’s memories, that’s what memory is for, You are jealous, No, I’m not jealous, I was not even jealous on that occasion, I felt sorry for her and for you, and also for myself because I could not help you, How are we fixed for water, Badly.”

Herman Melville, “Moby Dick.” 467 words.

“Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognized a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title “Lord of the White Elephants” above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.”

Jorge Luis Borges, “The Aleph.” 475 words.

“I saw the teeming sea; I saw daybreak and nightfall; I saw the multitudes of America; I saw a silvery cobweb in the center of a black pyramid; I saw a splintered labyrinth (it was London); I saw, close up, unending eyes watching themselves in me as in a mirror; I saw all the mirrors on earth and none of them reflected me; I saw in a backyard of Soler Street the same tiles that thirty years before I’d seen in the entrance of a house in Fray Bentos; I saw bunches of grapes, snow, tobacco, lodes of metal, steam; I saw convex equatorial deserts and each one of their grains of sand; I saw a woman in Inverness whom I shall never forget; I saw her tangled hair, her tall figure, I saw the cancer in her breast; I saw a ring of baked mud in a sidewalk, where before there had been a tree; I saw a summer house in Adrogué and a copy of the first English translation of Pliny — Philemon Holland’s — and all at the same time saw each letter on each page (as a boy, I used to marvel that the letters in a closed book did not get scrambled and lost overnight); I saw a sunset in Querétaro that seemed to reflect the colour of a rose in Bengal; I saw my empty bedroom; I saw in a closet in Alkmaar a terrestrial globe between two mirrors that multiplied it endlessly; I saw horses with flowing manes on a shore of the Caspian Sea at dawn; I saw the delicate bone structure of a hand; I saw the survivors of a battle sending out picture postcards; I saw in a showcase in Mirzapur a pack of Spanish playing cards; I saw the slanting shadows of ferns on a greenhouse floor; I saw tigers, pistons, bison, tides, and armies; I saw all the ants on the planet; I saw a Persian astrolabe; I saw in the drawer of a writing table (and the handwriting made me tremble) unbelievable, obscene, detailed letters, which Beatriz had written to Carlos Argentino; I saw a monument I worshipped in the Chacarita cemetery; I saw the rotted dust and bones that had once deliciously been Beatriz Viterbo; I saw the circulation of my own dark blood; I saw the coupling of love and the modification of death; I saw the Aleph from every point and angle, and in the Aleph I saw the earth and in the earth the Aleph and in the Aleph the earth; I saw my own face and my own bowels; I saw your face; and I felt dizzy and wept, for my eyes had seen that secret and conjectured object whose name is common to all men but which no man has looked upon — the unimaginable universe.”

Donald Antrim, “The Hundred Brothers.” 522 words.

“My brothers Rob, Bob, Tom, Paul, Ralph, Phil, Noah, William, Nick, Dennis, Christopher, Frank, Simon, Saul, Jim, Henry, Seamus, Richard, Jeremy, Walter, Jonathan, James, Arthur, Rex, Bertram, Vaughan, Daniel, Russel, and Angus; and the triplets Herbert, Patrick, and Jeffrey; identical twins Michael and Abraham, Lawrence and Peter, Winston and Charles, Scott and Samuel; and Eric, Donovan, Roger, Lester, Larry, Clinton, Drake, Gregory, Leon, Kevin, and Jack–all born on the same day, the twenty-third of May, though at different hours in separate years–and the caustic graphomaniac, Sergio, whose scathing opinions appear with regularity in the front-of-book pages of the more conservative monthlies, not to mention on the liquid crystal screens that glow at night atop the radiant work stations of countless bleary-eyed computer bulletinboard subscribers (among whom our brother is known, affectionately, electronically, as Surge); and Albert, who is blind; and Siegfried, the sculptor in burning steel; and clinically depressed Anton, schizophrenic Irv, recovering addict Clayton; and Maxwell, the tropical botanist, who, since returning from the rain forest, has seemed a little screwed up somehow; and Jason, Joshua, and Jeremiah, each vaguely gloomy in his own “lost boy” way; and Eli, who spends solitary wakeful evenings in the tower, filling notebooks with drawings–the artist’s multiple renderings for a larger work?–portraying the faces of his brothers, including Chuck, the prosecutor; Porter, the diarist; Andrew, the civil rights activist; Pierce, the designer of radically unbuildable buildings; Barry, the good doctor of medicine; Fielding, the documentary-film maker; Spencer, the spook with known ties to the State Department; Foster, the “new millennium” psychotherapist; Aaron, the horologist; Raymond, who flies his own plane; and George, the urban planner who, if you read the papers, you’ll recall, distinguished himself, not so long ago, with that innovative program for revitalizing the decaying downtown area (as “an animate interactive diorama illustrating contemporary cultural and economic folkways”), only to shock and amaze everyone, absolutely everyone, by vanishing with a girl named Jane and an overnight bag packed with municipal funds in unmarked hundreds; and all the young fathers: Seth, Rod, Vidal, Bennet, Dutch, Brice, Allan, Clay, Vincent, Gustavus, and Joe; and Hiram, the eldest; Zachary, the Giant; Jacob, the polymath; Virgil, the compulsive whisperer; Milton, the channeler of spirits who speak across time; and the really bad womanizers: Stephen, Denzil, Forrest, Topper, Temple, Lewis, Mongo, Spooner, and Fish; and, of course, our celebrated “perfect” brother, Benedict, recipient of a medal of honor from the Academy of Sciences for work over twenty years in chemical transmission of “sexual language” in eleven types of social insects–all of us (except George, about whom there have been many rumors, rumors upon rumors: he’s fled the vicinity, he’s right here under our noses, he’s using an alias or maybe several, he has a new face, that sort of thing)–all my ninety-eight, not counting George, brothers and I recently came together in the red library and resolved that the time had arrived, finally, to stop being blue, put the past behind us, share a light supper, and locate, if we could bear to, the missing urn full of the old fucker’s ashes.”

Roberto Bolano, “2666.” 554 words.

“That same day Kessler was at Cerro Estrella and he walked around Colonia Estrella and Colonia Hidalgo and explored the area along the Pueblo Azul highway and saw the ranches empty like shoe boxes, solid structures, graceless, functionless, that stood at the bends of the roads that ran into the Pueblo Azul highway, and then he wanted to see the neighborhoods along the border, Colonia Mexico, next to El Adobe, at which point you were back in the United States, the bars and restaurants and hotels of Colonia Mexico and its main street, where there was a permanent thunder of trucks and cars on their way to the border crossing, and then he made his entourage turn south along Avenida General Sepulveda and the Cananea highway, where they took a detour into Colonia La Vistosa, a place the police almost never ventured, one of the inspectors told him, the one who was driving, and the other one nodded sorrowfully, as if the absence of police in Colonia La Vistosa and Colonia Kino and Colonia Remedies Mayor was a shameful stain that they, zealous young men, bore with sorrow, and why sorrow? well, because impunity pained them, they said, whose impunity? the impunity of the gangs that controlled the drug trade in these godforsaken neighborhoods, something that made Kessler think, since in principle, looking out the car window at the fragmented landscape, it was hard to imagine any of the residents buying drugs, easy to imagine them using, but hard, very hard, to imagine them buying, digging in their pockets to come up with enough change to make a purchase, something easy enough to imagine in the black and Hispanic ghettos up north, neighborhoods that looked placid in comparison to this dismal chaos, but the two inspectors nodded, their strong, young jaws, that’s right, there’s lots of coke around here and all the filth that comes with it, and then Kessler looked out again at the landscape, fragmented or in the constant process of fragmentation, like a puzzle repeatedly assembled and disassembled, and told the driver to take him to the illegal dump El Chile, the biggest illegal dump in Santa Teresa, bigger than the city dump, where waste was disposed of not only by the maquiladora trucks but also by garbage trucks contracted by the city and some private garbage trucks and pickups, subcontracted or working in areas that public services didn’t cover, and then the car was back on paved streets and they seemed to head the way they’d come, returning to Colonia La Vistosa and the highway, but then they turned down a wider street, just as desolate, where even the brush was covered with a thick layer of dust, as if an atomic bomb had dropped nearby and no one had noticed, except the victims, thought Kessler, but they didn’t count because they’d lost their minds or were dead, even though they still walked and stared, their eyes and stares straight out of a Western, the stares of Indians or bad guys, of course, in other words lunatics, people living in another dimension, their gazes no longer able to touch us, we’re aware of them but they don’t touch us, they don’t adhere to our skin, they shoot straight through us, thought Kessler as he moved to roll down the window.”

David Foster Wallace, Oblivion , “Mister Squishy.” 562 words.

“Schmidt had had several years of psychotherapy and was not without some perspective on himself, and he knew that a certain percentage of his reaction to the way these older men coolly inspected their cuticles or pinched at the crease in the trouser of the topmost leg as they sat back on the coccyx joggling the foot of their crossed leg was just his insecurity, that he felt somewhat sullied and implicated by the whole enterprise of contemporary marketing and that this sometimes manifested via projection as the feeling that people he was trying to talk as candidly as possible to always believed he was making a sales pitch or trying to manipulate them in some way, as if merely being employed, however ephemerally, in the great grinding US marketing machine had somehow colored his whole being  and that something essentially shifty or pleading in his expression now always seemed inherently false or manipulative and turned people off, and not just in his career – which was not his whole existence, unlike so many at Team Δy, or even that terribly important to him; he had a vivid and complex inner life, and introspected a great deal – but in his personal affairs as well, and that somewhere along the line his professional marketing skills had metastasized through his whole character so that he was now the sort of man who, if he were to screw up his courage and ask a female colleague out for drinks and over drinks open his heart to her and reveal that he respected her enormously, that his feelings for her involved elements of both professional and highly personal regard, and that   he spent a great deal more time thinking about her than she probably had any idea he did, and that if there were anything at all he could ever do to make her life happier or easier or more satisfying or fulfilling he hoped she’d just say the word, for that is all she would have to do, say the word or snap her thick fingers or even just look at him in a meaningful way, and he’d be there, instantly and with no reservations at all, he would nevertheless in all probability be viewed as probably just wanting to sleep with her or fondle or harass her, or as having some creepy obsession with her, or as maybe even having a small creepy secretive shrine to her in one corner of the unused second bedroom of his condominium, consisting of personal items fished out of her cubicle’s wastebasket or the occasional dry witty little notes she passed him during especially deadly or absurd Team Δy staff meetings, or that his home Apple PowerBook’s screensaver was an Adobe-brand 1440-dpi blowup of a digital snapshot of the two of them with his arm over her shoulder and just part of the arm and shoulder of another Team Δy Field-worker with his arm over her shoulder from the other side at a Fourth of July picnic that A.C. Romney-Jaswat & Assoc. had thrown for its research subcontractors at Navy Pier two years past, Darlene holding her cup and smiling in such a way as to show almost as much upper gum as teeth, the ale’s cup’s red digitally enhanced to match her lipstick and the small scarlet rainbow she often wore just right of center as a sort of personal signature or statement.”

Thomas Bernhard, “Correction.” 720 words.

“The atmosphere in Hoeller’s house was still heavy, most of all with the circumstances of Roithamer’s suicide, and seemed from the moment of my arrival favorable to my plan of working on Roithamer’s papers there, specifically in Hoeller’s garret, sifting and sorting Roithamer’s papers and even, as I suddenly decided, simultaneously writing my own account of my work on these papers, as I have here begun to do, aided by having been able to move straight into Hoeller’s garret without any reservations on Hoeller’s part, even though the house had other suitable accommodations, I deliberately moved into that four-by-five-meter garret Roithamer was always so fond of, which was so ideal, especially in his last years, for his purposes, where I could stay as long as I liked, it was all the same to Hoeller, in this house built by the headstrong Hoeller in defiance of every rule of reason and architecture right here in the Aurach gorge, in the garret which Hoeller had designed and built as if for Roithamer’s purposes, where Roithamer, after sixteen years in England with me, had spent the final years of his life almost continuously, and even prior to that he had found it convenient to spend at least his nights in the garret, especially while he was building the Cone for his sister in the Kobernausser forest, all the time the Cone was under construction he no longer slept at home in Altensam but always and only in Hoeller’s garret, it was simply in every respect the ideal place for him during those last years when he, Roithamer, never went straight home to Altensam from England, but instead went every time to Hoeller’s garret, to fortify himself in its simplicity (Hoeller house) for the complexity ahead (Cone), it would not do to go straight to Altensam from England, where each of us, working separately in his own scientific field, had been living in Cambridge all those years, he had to go straight to Hoeller’s garret, if he did not follow this rule which had become a cherished habit, the visit to Altensam was a disaster from the start, so he simply could not let himself go directly from England to Altensam and everything connected with Altensam, whenever he had not made the detour via Hoeller’s house, to save time, as he himself admitted, it had been a mistake, so he no longer made the experiment of going to Altensam without first stopping at Hoeller’s house, in those last years, he never again went home without first visiting Hoeller and Hoeller’s family and Hoeller’s house, without first moving into Hoeller’s garret, to devote himself for two or three days to such reading as he could do only in Hoeller s garret, of subject matter that was not harmful but helpful o him, books and articles he could read neither in Altensam or in England, and to thinking and writing what he found possible to think and write neither in England nor in Altensam, here I discovered Hegel, he always said, over and over again, it was here that I really delved into Schopenhauer for the first time, here that I could read, for the first time, Goethe’sElective Affinities and The Sentimental Journey, without distraction and with a clear head, it was here, in Hoeller’s garret, that I suddenly gained access to ideas to which my mind had been sealed for decades before I came to this garret, access, he wrote, to the most essential ideas, the most important for me, the most necessary to my life, here in Hoeller’s garret, he wrote, everything became possible for me, everything that had always been impossible for me outside Hoeller’s garret, such as letting myself be guided by my intellectual inclinations and to develop my natural aptitudes accordingly, and to get on with my work, everywhere else I had always been hindered in developing my aptitudes but in Hoeller’s garret I could always develop them most consistently, here everything was congenial to my way of thinking, here I could always indulge myself in exploring all my intellectual possibilities, here my intellectual possibilities, here in Hoeller’s garret my head, my mind, my whole constitution were suddenly relieved from all the outside world’s oppression, the most incredible things were suddenly no longer incredible, the most impossible (thinking!) no longer impossible.”

Marcel Proust, “Remembrance of Things Past.” 958 words.

“Their honour precarious, their liberty provisional, lasting only until the discovery of their crime; their position unstable, like that of the poet who one day was feasted at every table, applauded in every theatre in London, and on the next was driven from every lodging, unable to find a pillow upon which to lay his head, turning the mill like Samson and saying like him: “The two sexes shall die, each in a place apart!”; excluded even, save on the days of general disaster when the majority rally round the victim as the Jews rallied round Dreyfus, from the sympathy–at times from the society–of their fellows, in whom they inspire only disgust at seeing themselves as they are, portrayed in a mirror which, ceasing to flatter them, accentuates every blemish that they have refused to observe in themselves, and makes them understand that what they have been calling their love (a thing to which, playing upon the word, they have by association annexed all that poetry, painting, music, chivalry, asceticism have contrived to add to love) springs not from an ideal of beauty which they have chosen but from an incurable malady; like the Jews again (save some who will associate only with others of their race and have always on their lips ritual words and consecrated pleasantries), shunning one another, seeking out those who are most directly their opposite, who do not desire their company, pardoning their rebuffs, moved to ecstasy by their condescension; but also brought into the company of their own kind by the ostracism that strikes them, the opprobrium under which they have fallen, having finally been invested, by a persecution similar to that of Israel, with the physical and moral characteristics of a race, sometimes beautiful, often hideous, finding (in spite of all the mockery with which he who, more closely blended with, better assimilated to the opposing race, is relatively, in appearance, the least inverted, heaps upon him who has remained more so) a relief in frequenting the society of their kind, and even some corroboration of their own life, so much so that, while steadfastly denying that they are a race (the name of which is the vilest of insults), those who succeed in concealing the fact that they belong to it they readily unmask, with a view less to injuring them, though they have no scruple about that, than to excusing themselves; and, going in search (as a doctor seeks cases of appendicitis) of cases of inversion in history, taking pleasure in recalling that Socrates was one of themselves, as the Israelites claim that Jesus was one of them, without reflecting that there were no abnormals when homosexuality was the norm, no anti-Christians before Christ, that the disgrace alone makes the crime because it has allowed to survive only those who remained obdurate to every warning, to every example, to every punishment, by virtue of an innate disposition so peculiar that it is more repugnant to other men (even though it may be accompanied by exalted moral qualities) than certain other vices which exclude those qualities, such as theft, cruelty, breach of faith, vices better understood and so more readily excused by the generality of men; forming a freemasonry far more extensive, more powerful and less suspected than that of the Lodges, for it rests upon an identity of tastes, needs, habits, dangers, apprenticeship, knowledge, traffic, glossary, and one in which the members themselves, who intend not to know one another, recognise one another immediately by natural or conventional, involuntary or deliberate signs which indicate one of his congeners to the beggar in the street, in the great nobleman whose carriage door he is shutting, to the father in the suitor for his daughter’s hand, to him who has sought healing, absolution, defence, in the doctor, the priest, the barrister to whom he has had recourse; all of them obliged to protect their own secret but having their part in a secret shared with the others, which the rest of humanity does not suspect and which means that to them the most wildly improbable tales of adventure seem true, for in this romantic, anachronistic life the ambassador is a bosom friend of the felon, the prince, with a certain independence of action with which his aristocratic breeding has furnished him, and which the trembling little cit would lack, on leaving the duchess’s party goes off to confer in private with the hooligan; a reprobate part of the human whole, but an important part, suspected where it does not exist, flaunting itself, insolent and unpunished, where its existence is never guessed; numbering its adherents everywhere, among the people, in the army, in the church, in the prison, on the throne; living, in short, at least to a great extent, in a playful and perilous intimacy with the men of the other race, provoking them, playing with them by speaking of its vice as of something alien to it; a game that is rendered easy by the blindness or duplicity of the others, a game that may be kept up for years until the day of the scandal, on which these lion-tamers are devoured; until then, obliged to make a secret of their lives, to turn away their eyes from the things on which they would naturally fasten them, to fasten them upon those from which they would naturally turn away, to change the gender of many of the words in their vocabulary, a social constraint, slight in comparison with the inward constraint which their vice, or what is improperly so called, imposes upon them with regard not so much now to others as to themselves, and in such a way that to themselves it does not appear a vice.”

Steven Millhauser, “Home Run.” 1147 words.

“Bottom of the ninth, two out, game tied, runners at the corners, the count full on McCluskey, the fans on their feet, this place is going wild, outfield shaded in to guard against the blooper, pitcher looks in, shakes off the sign, a big lead off first, they’re not holding him on, only run that matters is the man dancing off third, shakes off another sign, McCluskey asking for time, steps out of the box, tugs up his batter’s glove, knocks dirt from his spikes, it’s a cat ‘n’ mouse game, break up his rhythm, make him wait, now the big guy’s back in the box, down in his crouch, the tall lefty toes the rubber, looks in, gives the nod, will he go with the breaking ball, maybe thinking slider, third baseman back a step, catcher sets up inside, pitcher taking his time, very deliberate out there, now he’s ready, the set, the kick, he deals, it’s a fastball, straight down the pipe, McCluskey swings, a tremendous rip, he crushes it, the crowd is screaming, the centerfielder back, back, angling toward right, tons of room out there in no man’s land, still going back, he’s at the track, that ball is going, going, he’s at the wall, looking up, that ball is gone, see ya, hasta la vista baby, McCluskey goes yard, over the three-hundred-ninety-foot mark in right center, game over, he creamed it, that baby is gone and she ain’t comin back anytime soon, sayonara, the crowd yelling, the ball still carrying, the stands going crazy, McCluskey rounding second, the ball still up there, way up there, high over the right-centerfield bleachers, headed for the upper deck, talk about a tape-measure shot, another M-bomb from the Big M, been doing it all year, he’s rounding third, ball still going, still going, that ball was smoked, a no doubter, wait a minute wait a minute oh oh oh it’s outta here, that ball is out of the park, cleared the upper deck, up over the Budweiser sign, Jimmy can you get me figures on that, he hammered it clean outta here, got all of it, can you believe it, an out of the parker, hot diggity, slammed it a country mile, the big guy’s crossing the plate, team’s all over him, the crowd roaring, what’s that Jimmy, Jimmy are you sure, I’m being told it’s a first, that’s right a first, no one’s ever socked one out before, the Clusker really got around on it, looking fastball all the way, got the sweet part of the bat on it, launched a rocket, oh baby did he scald it, I mean he drilled it, the big guy is strong but it’s that smooth swing of his, the King of Swing, puts his whole body into it, hits with his legs, he smashed it, a Cooperstown clout, right on the screws, the ball still going, unbelievable, up past the Goodyear Blimp, see ya later alligator, up into the wild blue yonder, still going, ain’t nothing gonna stop that baby, they’re walking McCluskey back to the dugout, fans swarming all over the field, they’re pointing up at the sky, the ball still traveling, up real high, that ball is wayway outta here, Jimmy what have you got, going, going, hold on, what’s that Jimmy, I’m told the ball has gone all the way through the troposphere, is that a fact, now how about that, the big guy hit it a ton, really skyed it, up there now in the stratosphere, good golly Miss Molly, help me out here Jimmy, stratosphere starts at six miles and goes up 170,000 feet, man did he ever jack it outta here, a dinger from McSwinger, a whopper from the Big Bopper, going, going, the stands emptying out, the ball up in the mesosphere, the big guy blistered it, he powdered it, the ground crew picking up bottles and paper cups and peanut shells and hot dog wrappers, power-washing the seats, you can bet people’ll be talking about this one for a long time to come, he plastered that ball, a pitch right down Broadway, tried to paint the inside corner but missed his spot, you don’t want to let the big guy extend those arms, up now in the exosphere, way up there, never seen anything like it, the ball carrying well all day but who would’ve thought, wait a minute, hold on a second, holy cow it’s left the earth’s atmosphere, so long it’s been good ta know ya, up there now in outer space, I mean that ball is outta here, bye bye birdie, still going, down here at the park the stands are empty, sun gone down, moon’s up, nearly full, it’s a beautiful night, temperature seventy-three, another day game tomorrow then out to the West coast for a tough three-game series, the ball still going, looks like she’s headed for the moon, talk about a moon shot, man did he ever paste it outta here, higher, deeper, going, going, it’s gone past the moon, you can kiss that baby goodbye, goodnight Irene I’ll see you in my dreams, the big guy got good wood on it, right on the money, swinging for the downs, the ball still traveling, sailing past Mars, up through the asteroid belt, you gotta love it, past Jupiter, see ya Saturn, so long Uranus, arrivederci Neptune, up there now in the Milky Way, a round-tripper to the Big Dipper, a galaxy shot, a black-hole blast, how many stars are we talking about Jimmy, Jimmy says two hundred billion, that’s two hundred billion stars in the Milky Way, a nickel for every star and you can stop worrying about your 401K, the ball still traveling, out past the Milky Way and headed on into intergalactic space, hooo did he ever whack it, he shellacked it, a good season but came up short in the playoffs, McCluskey’ll be back next year, the ball out past the Andromeda galaxy, going, going, the big guy mashed it, he clob-bobbered it, wham-bam-a-rammed it, he’s looking good in spring training, back with that sweet swing, out past the Virgo supercluster with its thousands of galaxies, that ball was spanked, a Big Bang for the record book, a four-bagger with swagger, out past the Hydra-Centaurus supercluster, still going, out past the Aquarius supercluster, thousands and millions of superclusters out there, McCluskey still remembers it, he’s coaching down in Triple A, the big man a sensation in his day, the ball still out there, still climbing, sailing out toward the edge of the observable universe, the edge receding faster than the speed of light, the ball still going, still going, he remembers the feel of the wood in his hands, the good sound of it as he swung, smell of pine tar, bottom of the ninth, two on, two out, a summer day.”

David Foster Wallace, “The Pale King.” 1185 words.

“Part of what kept him standing in the restive group of men waiting authorization to enter the airport was a kind of paralysis that resulted from Sylvanshine’s reflecting on the logistics of getting to the Peoria 047 REC – the issue of whether the REC sent a van for transfers or whether Sylvanshine would have to take a cab from the little airport had not been conclusively resolved – and then how to arrive and check in and where to store his three bags while he checked in and filled out his arrival and Post-code payroll and withholding forms and orientational materials then somehow get directions and proceed to the apartment that Systems had rented for him at government rates and get there in time to find someplace to eat that was either in walking distance or would require getting another cab – except the telephone in the alleged apartment wasn’t connected yet and he considered the prospects of being able to hail a cab from outside an apartment window complex were at best iffy, and if he told the original cab he’d taken to the apartment to wait for him, there would be difficulties because how exactly would he reassure the cabbie that he really was coming right back out after dropping his bags and doing a quick spot check of the apartment’s condition and suitability instead of it being a ruse designed to defraud the driver of his fare, Sylvanshine ducking out the back of the Angler’s Cove apartment complex or even conceivably barricading himself in the apartment and not responding to the driver’s knock, or his ring if the apartment had a doorbell, which his and Reynold’s current apartment in Martinsburg most assuredly did not, or the driver’s queries/threats through the apartment door, a scam that resided in Claude Sylvanshine’s awareness only because a number of independent Philadelphia commercial carriage operators had proposed heavy Schedule C losses under the provisio “Losses Through Theft of Service” and detailed this type of scam as prevalent on the poorly typed or sometimes even handwritten attachments required to explain unusual or specific C-deductions like this, whereas were Sylvanshine to pay the fare and tip and perhaps even a certain amount in advance on account so as to help assure the driver of his honorable intentions re the second leg of the sojourn there was no tangible guarantee that the average taxi driver – a cynical and ethically marginal species, hustlers, as even their sumdged returns’ very low tip-income-vs-number-of-fares-in-an-average-shift ratios in Philly had indicated – wouldn’t simply speed away with Sylvanshine’s money, creating enormous hassles in terms of filling out the internal forms for getting a percentage of his travel per diem reimbursed and also leaving Sylvanshine alone, famished (he was unable to eat before travel), phoneless, devoid of Reynold’s counsel and logistical savvy in the sterile new unfurnished apartment, his stomach roiling in on itself in such a way that it would be all Sylvanshine could to unpack in any kind of half-organized fashion and get to sleep on the nylon travel pallet on the unfinished floor in the possible presence of exotic Midwestern bugs, to say nothing of putting in the hour of CPA exam review he’d promised himself this morning when he’d overslept slightly and then encountered last-minute packing problems that had canceled out the firmly scheduled hour of morning CPA review before one of the unmarked Systems vans arrived to take him and his bags out through Harpers Ferry and Ball’s Bluff to the airport, to say even less about any kind of systematic organization and mastery of the voluminous Post, Duty, Personnel, and Systems Protocols materials he should be receiving promptly after check-in and forms processing at the Post, which any reasonable Personnel Director would expect a new examiner to have thoroughly internalized before reporting for the first actual day interacting with REC examiners, and which there was no way in any real world that Sylanshine could expect himself to try to review and internalize on either a sixteen-hour fast or a night on the pallet with his damp raincoat as a pillow – he had been unable to pack the special contoured orthotic pillow for his neck’s chronic pinched or inflamed nerve; it would have required its own suitcase and thereby exceeded the baggage limit and incurred an exorbitant surcharge which Reynolds refused to let Sylvanshine pay out of same principle – with the additional problem of securing any sort of substantive breakfast or return ride to the REC in the morning without a phone, or how without a phone one was supposed to even try to verify whether and when the apartment phone was going to be activated, plus of course the ominous probability of oversleeping the next morning due to both travel fatigue and his not having packed his traveler’s alarm clock – or at any rate not having been certain that he’d packed in instead of allowing it to go into one of the three large cartons that he had packed and labeled but done a hasty, slipshod job of writing out Contents Lists for the boxes to refer to when unpacking them in Peoria, and which Reynolds had pledged to insert into the Service’s Support Branch shipping mechanism at roughly the same time Sylvanshine’s flight was scheduled to depart from Dulles, which meant two or possibly even three days before the cartons with all the essentials Sylvanshine had not been able to fit into his bags arrived, and even then they would arrive at the REC and it was as yet unclear how Claude would then them home to the apartment – the realization about the traveler’s alarm having been the chief cause of Sylvanshine’s having to unlock and open all the carefully packed luggage that morning on arising already half an hour late, to try to locate or verify the inclusion of the portable alarm, which he had failed to do – the whole thing presenting such a cyclone of logistical problems and complexities that Sylvanshine was forced to some some Thought Stopping right there on the wet tarmac surrounded by restive breathers, turning 360-degrees several times and trying to merge his own awareness with the panoramic vista, which except for airport-related items was uniformly featureless and old-coin gray and so remarkably flat that it was as if the earth here had been stamped on with some cosmic boot, visibility in all directions limited only by the horizon, which was the same general color and texture as the sky and created the specular impression of being in the center of some huge and stagnant body of water, an oceanic impression so literally obliterating that Sylvanshine was cast or propelled back in on himself and felt again the edge of the shadow of the wing of Total Terror and Disqualification pass over him, the knowledge of his being surely and direly ill-suited for whatever lay ahead, and of its being only a matter of time before this fact emerged and was made manifest to all those present in the moment that Sylvanshine finally, and forever, lost it.”

Roderick Moody-Corbett, “Parse.” 1203 words.

“You know that you will see him again, at least you have told yourself not to worry, not to, in the words of your psychiatrist, Dr. Blackmur, with whom you’ve not spoken in seventy-two hours, “let things snowball,” and that this—whatever it is that’s happening to you right now—is not necessarily an ending so much as an interstice, by which you seem to mean, vaguely, a kind of brief emotive pause, a regrouping, of sorts, during which time you will both try and get your respective shit (s?) together, so that one day, and, you hope, one day soon, you might share a sleazy Sunday afternoon together, hungover, occasionally tumbling into an eager, tingly, greedy kind of sex (a sex so deeply parasitic that you feel, like vampires, a need to drink it), and then, post-coitus, each of you tolerably sated, his head, the benign humidity of his left temple, say, murmuring on your chest, a Sunday, a potted avocado seed beginning to doff its husk on the windowsill, and the window, then, with rain or sun or sleet behind it, and a feeling of gratitude that you are all too grateful to notice, fleeting, you’d call it, this feeling, which, it suddenly occurs to you, you may never again know the daytime delirium of—or so you try not to tell yourself as muscling two suitcases down the narrow, slippery, improbably leaf-blistered steps (of what, technically speaking, is no longer your guys’ apartment) and towards the curb where, any minute now, a cab, a checkered yellow-black hearse, will glide up and take you to the Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport, where, having puzzled around the Porter Terminal some twenty-three minutes, a kind of wide tugboat type thing will drag you and your two miserable suitcases (of which, just your luck, the heavier of the two has a broken wheel) to the airport proper, where you will, almost finally, fly home—St. John’s—even though the word home, or, the very notion of home, doesn’t quite make sense to you at this particular moment, because, let’s face it, welling up inside of you—recall, you’re still very much on the curb here—is this horrible and excruciating sense of homelessness that manifests itself as a kind of bowel-deep sphincter-bristling angst, and you feel that what you are leaving, or, no, in the spirit of pained specificity, what you are basically on the precipice of almost leaving—a bright two bedroom apartment with two patios, one windowless bathroom, and a kitchen with beech countertops, sooty-mauve walls and terracotta tiles—feels, even as you are so clearly leaving it, very much like a home, and how the fuck does that work, you wonder, idiotically, just as he, the man you are promising yourself you will one day see again, comes down the steps bearing a small white dog, a Pomeranian, with its simple moist snout, a ludicrous little animal that you’ve come, in recent months, to adore, tic-tac brain, raisin eyes et al.—and it doesn’t help that this man has tears, the beginnings of tears, in his eyes, and that now, quite suddenly, so do you, and it’s almost nine o’clock in the morning on like—this kills you—a fucking Tuesday, you think, and the last thing you want to be doing is saying goodbye to the man you, trite as it sounds, love, while around you surges an indolent chatter of morning traffic, caroming buses and streetcars and somewhere, not so far off, perhaps, the dopplering bray of an ambulance, and maybe, because you still love him, you feel it, this sense of incumbent regret, crawling through your chest so much so that it sends a few nervy jots of phlegm swimming up your throat, and but then—check this out, yes, see—here comes the cabby and now you’re on the clock because, holy shit, this guy’s face—jowly and hale, with telltale pouches of insomnia, like bruisy garlic cloves, slung beneath his eyes—seems stilled in a kind of harried rictus, and yet, and yet, you want this moment, horrible as it is, to last, if not forever, then at least a few minutes more, because, God, it just might be the last time—but, you say, don’t tell yourself this—as the man you are promising yourself you will one day see again leans into you and your five o’clock shadows lock like a bad similes, and he says, in a voice you are already beginning to forget, I love you, and you kiss, for some reason, the dog first, you press your index finger on its wet snout—and, rebuking you somewhat (in this, the dog seems just as impatient as the cabby)—you hold him close, dog and man, and you whisper in his ear, as much for him as for, you suppose, yourself, this isn’t the end of anything, I promise, we’ll see each other soon, even though, all of a sudden, you’re not, you’re in the cab and you’re telling the driver—who, what with his spade chin and lean veiny nose, you feel is pretty wise to what’s going on and (judging from the dour officiousness of his “Where you headed?”) maybe even just a little bit repelled and slightly resentful of you for having implicated him, poor guy, in the middle of it—you tell him: drive man, just like, you know, fucking drive, and, as he begins to edge out onto Queen, the fervid snick of his turn signal beating down on you, an insomnious pulse, you suffer one final glance out the back window and it’s an image of him, looming out of a rearview swell of cirrus, cradling that ludicrous Pomeranian, just standing there, mute and numb, in that upsized Adidas jacket, the one you picked out for him last Christmas at the Sally-Ann in Markham, and which, given its size or his size, you’d purchased more or less as a joke, and which he’d inadvertently loved, and now something, something in the far-flung comedy of this memory, man, it just about kills you (again), and you almost hope he’s crying, to feel how wet his eyes are because you’re crying, his eyes are your eyes—you look at me and eye you, etc.—and you want, suddenly, to scream: PAUSE!, just pull this fucking cab to the side of the road and let me the fuck out, but you don’t—because, and this will be important later, this, as Dr. Blackmur might say, sotto voce, “will definitely be on the final exam,” it has just now occurred to you that your sickness has no soundtrack—you drive, and this feeling, yes, yes, trite and banal and horrible as it is, it stays with you, and the only way to fight this feeling is to have faith, so you tell yourself not to worry, probably you will almost definitely see him again, keep saying it, until, like some kind of cunning liturgical chant spilled from the parched and cracking lips of a neo-Gregorian supplicant, the words become bloated and vague and, semiotically speaking, opaque: this, whatever it is, isn’t the end of anything, keep telling yourself this, hope.”

William Faulkner, “Absalom, Absalom.” 1289 words.

“Just exactly like Father if Father had known as much about it the night before I went out there as he did the day after I came back thinking Mad impotent old man who realised at last that there must be some limit even to the capabilities of a demon for doing harm, who must have seen his situation as that of the show girl, the pony, who realises that the principal tune she prances to comes not from horn and fiddle and drum but from a clock and calendar, must have seen himself as the old wornout cannon which realises that it can deliver just one more fierce shot and crumble to dust in its own furious blast and recoil, who looked about upon the scene which was still within his scope and compass and saw son gone, vanished, more insuperable to him now than if the son were dead since now (if the son still lived) his name would be different and those to call him by it strangers and whatever dragon’s outcropping of Sutpen blood the son might sow on the body of whatever strange woman would therefore carry on the tradition, accomplish the hereditary evil and harm under another name and upon and among people who will never have heard the right one; daughter doomed to spinsterhood who had chosen spinsterhood already before there was anyone named Charles Bon since the aunt who came to succor her in bereavement and sorrow found neither but instead that calm absolutely impenetrable face between a homespun dress and sunbonnet seen before a closed door and again in a cloudy swirl of chickens while Jones was building the coffin and which she wore during the next year while the aunt lived there and the three women wove their own garments and raised their own food and cut the wood they cooked it with (excusing what help they had from Jones who lived with his granddaughter in the abandoned fishing camp with its collapsing roof and rotting porch against which the rusty scythe which Sutpen was to lend him, make him borrow to cut away the weeds from the door-and at last forced him to use though not to cut weeds, at least not vegetable weeds -would lean for two years) and wore still after the aunt’s indignation had swept her back to town to live on stolen garden truck and out o f anonymous baskets left on her front steps at night, the three of them, the two daughters negro and white and the aunt twelve miles away watching from her distance as the two daughters watched from theirs the old demon, the ancient varicose and despairing Faustus fling his final main now with the Creditor’s hand already on his shoulder, running his little country store now for his bread and meat, haggling tediously over nickels and dimes with rapacious and poverty-stricken whites and negroes, who at one time could have galloped for ten miles in any direction without crossing his own boundary, using out of his meagre stock the cheap ribbons and beads and the stale violently-colored candy with which even an old man can seduce a fifteen-year-old country girl, to ruin the granddaughter o f his partner, this Jones-this gangling malaria-ridden white man whom he had given permission fourteen years ago to squat in the abandoned fishing camp with the year-old grandchild-Jones, partner porter and clerk who at the demon’s command removed with his own hand (and maybe delivered too) from the showcase the candy beads and ribbons, measured the very cloth from which Judith (who had not been bereaved and did not mourn) helped the granddaughter to fashion a dress to walk past the lounging men in, the side-looking and the tongues, until her increasing belly taught her embarrassment-or perhaps fear;-Jones who before ’61 had not even been allowed to approach the front of the house and who during the next four years got no nearer than the kitchen door and that only when he brought the game and fish and vegetables on which the seducer-to-be’s wife and daughter (and Clytie too, the one remaining servant, negro, the one who would forbid him to pass the kitchen door with what he brought) depended on to keep life in them, but who now entered the house itself on the (quite frequent now) afternoons when the demon would suddenly curse the store empty of customers and lock the door and repair to the rear and in the same tone in which he used to address his orderly or even his house servants when he had them (and in which he doubtless ordered Jones to fetch from the showcase the ribbons and beads and candy) direct Jones to fetch the jug, the two of them (and Jones even sitting now who in the old days, the old dead Sunday afternoons of monotonous peace which they spent beneath the scuppernong arbor in the back yard, the demon lying in the hammock while Jones squatted against a post, rising from time to time to pour for the demon from the demijohn and the bucket of spring water which he had fetched from the spring more than a mile away then squatting again, chortling and chuckling and saying `Sho, Mister Tawm’ each time the demon paused)-the two of them drinking turn and turn about from the jug and the demon not lying down now nor even sitting but reaching after the third or second drink that old man’s state of impotent and furious undefeat in which he would rise, swaying and plunging and shouting for his horse and pistols to ride single-handed into Washington and shoot Lincoln (a year or so too late here) and Sherman both, shouting, ‘Kill them! Shoot them down like the dogs they are!’ and Jones: ‘Sho, Kernel; sho now’ and catching him as he fell and commandeering the first passing wagon to take him to the house and carry him up the front steps and through the paintless formal door beneath its fanlight imported pane by pane from Europe which Judith held open for him to enter with no change, no alteration in that calm frozen face which she had worn for four years now, and on up the stairs and into the bedroom and put him to bed like a baby and then lie down himself on the floor beside the bed though not to sleep since before dawn the man on the bed would stir and groan and Jones would say, ‘flyer I am, Kernel. Hit’s all right. They aint whupped us yit, air they?’ this Jones who after the demon rode away with the regiment when the granddaughter was only eight years old would tell people that he ‘was lookin after Major’s place and niggers’ even before they had time to ask him why he was not with the troops and perhaps in time came to believe the lie himself, who was among the first to greet the demon when he returned, to meet him at the gate and say, ‘Well, Kernel, they kilt us but they aint whupped us yit, air they?’ who even worked, labored, sweat at the demon’s behest during that first furious period while the demon believed he could restore by sheer indomitable willing the Sutpen’s Hundred which he remembered and had lost, labored with no hope of pay or reward who must have seen long before the demon did (or would admit it) that the task was hopeless-blind Jones who apparently saw still in that furious lecherous wreck the old fine figure of the man who once galloped on the black thoroughbred about that domain two boundaries of which the eye could not see from any point.”

Samuel Beckett, “The Unnamable.” 1672 words.

“The place, I’ll make it all the same, I’ll make it in my head, I’ll draw it out of my memory, I’ll gather it all about me, I’ll make myself a head, I’ll make myself a memory, I have only to listen, the voice will tell me everything, tell it to me again, everything I need, in dribs and drabs, breathless, it’s like a confession, a last confession, you think it’s finished, then it starts off again, there were so many sins, the memory is so bad, the words don’t come, the words fail, the breath fails, no, it’s something else, it’s an indictment, a dying voice accusing, accusing me, you must accuse someone, a culprit is indispensable, it speaks of my sins, it speaks of my head, it says it’s mine, it says that I repent, that I want to be punished, better than I am, that I want to go, give myself up, a victim is essential, I have only to listen, it will show me my hiding-place, what it’s like, where the door is, if there’s a door, and whereabouts I am in it, and what lies between us, how the land lies, what kind of country, whether it’s sea, or whether it’s mountain, and the way to take, so that I may go, make my escape, give myself up, come to the place where the axe falls, without further ceremony, on all who come from here, I’m not the first, I won’t be the first, it will best me in the end, it has bested better than me, it will tell me what to do, in order to rise, move, act like a body endowed with despair, that’s how I reason, that’s how I hear myself reasoning, all lies, it’s not me they’re calling, not me they’re talking about, it’s not yet my turn, it’s someone else’s turn, that’s why I can’t stir, that’s why I don’t feel a body on me, I’m not suffering enough yet, it’s not yet my turn, not suffering enough to be able to stir, to have a body, complete with head, to be able to understand, to have eyes to light the way, I merely hear, without understanding, without being able to profit by it, by what I hear, to do what, to rise and go and be done with hearing, I don’t hear everything, that must be it, the important things escape me, it’s not my turn, the topographical and anatomical information in particular is lost on me, no, I hear everything, what difference does it make, the moment it’s not my turn, my turn to understand, my turn to live, my turn of the lifescrew, it calls that living, the space of the way from here to the door, it’s all there, in what I hear, somewhere, if all has been said, all this long time, all must have been said, but it’s not my turn to know what, to know what I am, where I am, and what I should do to stop being it, to stop being there, that’s coherent, so as to be another, no, the same, I don’t know, depart into life, travel the road, find the door, find the axe, perhaps it’s a cord, for the neck, for the throat, for the cords, or fingers, I’ll have eyes, I’ll see fingers, it will be the silence, perhaps it’s a drop, find the door, open the door, drop, into the silence, it won’t be I, I’ll stay here, or there, more likely there, it will never be I, that’s all I know, it’s all been done already, said and said again, the departure, the body that rises, the way, in colour, the arrival, the door that opens, closes again, it was never I, I’ve never stirred, I’ve listened, I must have spoken, why deny it, why not admit it, after all, I deny nothing, I admit nothing, I say what I hear, I hear what I say, I don’t know, one or the other, or both, that makes three possibilities, pick your fancy, all these stories about travelers, these stories about paralytics, all are mine, I must be extremely old, or it’s memory playing tricks, if only I knew if I’ve lived, if I live, if I’ll live, that would simplify everything, impossible to find out, that’s where you’re buggered, I haven’t stirred, that’s all I know, no, I know something else, it’s not I, I always forget that, I resume, you must resume, never stirred from here, never stopped telling stories, to myself, hardly hearing them, hearing something else, listening for something else, wondering now and then where I got them from, was I in the land of the living, were they in mine, and where, where do I store them, in my head, I don’t feel a head on me, and what do I tell them with, with my mouth, same remark, and what do I hear them with, and so on, the old rigmarole, it can’t be I, or it’s because I pay no heed, it’s such an old habit, I do it without heeding, or as if I were somewhere else, there I am far again, there I am the absentee again, it’s his turn again now, he who neither speaks nor listens, who has neither body nor soul, it’s something else he has, he must have something, he must be somewhere, he is made of silence, there’s a pretty analysis, he’s in the silence, he’s the one to be sought, the one to be, the one to be spoken of, the one to speak, but he can’t speak, then I could stop, I’d be he, I’d be the silence, I’d be back in the silence, we’d be reunited, his story the story to be told, but he has no story, he hasn’t been in story, it’s not certain, he’s in his own story, unimaginable, unspeakable, that doesn’t matter, the attempt must be made, in the old stories incomprehensibly mine, to find his, it must be there somewhere, it must have been mine, before being his, I’ll recognize it, in the end I’ll recognize it, the story of the silence that he never left, that I should never have left, that I may never find again, that I may find again, then it will be he, it will be I, it will be the place, the silence, the end, the beginning, the beginning again, how can I say it, that’s all words, they’re all I have, and not many of them, the words fail, the voice fails, so be it, I know that well, it will be the silence, full of murmurs, distant cries, the usual silence, spent listening, spent waiting, waiting for the voice, the cries abate, like all cries, that is to say they stop, the murmurs cease, they give up, the voice begins again, it begins trying again, quick now before there is none left, no voice left, nothing left but the core of murmurs, distant cries, quick now and try again, with the words that remain, try what, I don’t know, I’ve forgotten, it doesn’t matter, I never knew, to have them carry me into my story, the words that remain, my old story, which I’ve forgotten, far from here, through the noise, through the door, into the silence, that must be it, it’s too late, perhaps it’s too late, perhaps they have, how would I know, in the silence you don’t know, perhaps it’s the door, perhaps I’m at the door, that would surprise me, perhaps it’s I, perhaps somewhere or other it was I, I can depart, all this time I’ve journeyed without knowing it, it’s I now at the door, what door, what’s a door doing here, it’s the last words, the true last, or it’s the murmurs, the murmurs are coming, I know that well, no, not even that, you talk of murmurs, distant cries, as long as you can talk, you talk of them before and you talk of them after, more lies, it will be the silence, the one that doesn’t last, spent listening, spent waiting, for it to be broken, for the voice to break it, perhaps there’s no other, I don’t know, it’s not worth having, that’s all I know, it’s not I, that’s all I know, it’s not mine, it’s the only one I ever had, that’s a lie, I must have had the other, the one that lasts, but it didn’t last, I don’t understand, that is to say it did, it still lasts, I’m still in it, I left myself behind in it, I’m waiting for me there, no, there you don’t wait, you don’t listen, I don’t know, perhaps it’s a dream, all a dream, that would surprise me, I’ll wake, in the silence, and never sleep again, it will be I, or dream, dream again, dream of a silence, a dream silence, full of murmurs, I don’t know, that’s all words, never wake, all words, there’s nothing else, you must go on, that’s all I know, they’re going to stop, I know that well, I can feel it, they’re going to abandon me, it will be the silence, for a moment, a good few moments, or it will be mine, the lasting one, that didn’t last, that still lasts, it will be I, you must go on, I can’t go on, you must go on, I’ll go on, you must say words, as long as there are any, until they find me, until they say me, strange pain, strange sin, you must go on, perhaps it’s done already, perhaps they have said me already, perhaps they have carried me to the threshold of my story, before the door that opens on my story, that would surprise me, if it opens, it will be I, it will be the silence, where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on.”

Donald Barthelme, “The Sentence.” 2,569 words.

“Or a long sentence moving at a certain pace down the page aiming for the bottom-if not the bottom of this page then some other page-where it can rest, or stop for a moment to think out the questions raised by its own (temporary) existence, which ends when the page is turned, or the sentence falls out of the mind that holds it (temporarily) in some kind of embrace, not necessarily an ardent one, but more perhaps the kind of embrace enjoyed (or endured), by a wife who has just waked up and is on her way to the bathroom in the morning to wash her hair, and is bumped into by her husband, who has been lounging at the breakfast table reading the newspaper, and doesn’t see her coming out of the bedroom, but, when he bumps into her, or is bumped into by her, raises his hands to embrace her lightly, transiently, because he knows that if he gives her a real embrace so early in the morning, before she has properly shaken the dreams out of her head, and got her duds on, she won’t respond, and may even become slightly angry, and say something wounding, and so the husband invests in this embrace not so much physical or emotional pressure as he might, because he doesn’t want to waste anything-with this sort of feeling, then, the sentence passes through the mind more or less, and there is another way of describing the situation too, which is to say that the sentence crawls through the mind like something someone says to you while you are listening very hard to the FM radio, some rock group there, with its thrilling sound, and so, with your attention or the major part of it at least already rewarded, there is not much mind room you can give to the remark, especially considering that you have probably just quarreled with that person, the maker of the remark, over the radio being too loud, or something like that, and the view you take, of the remark, is that you’d really rather not hear it, but if you have to hear it, you want to listen to it for the smallest possible length of time, and during a commercial, because immediately after the commercial they’re going to play a new rock song by your favorite group, a cut that has never been aired before, and you want to hear it and respond to it in a new way, a way that accords with whatever you’re feeling at the moment, or might feel, if the threat of new experience could be (temporarily) overbalanced by the promise of possible positive benefits, or what the mind construes as such, remembering that these are often, really, disguised defeats (not that such defeats are not, at times, good for your character, teaching you that it is not by success alone that one surmounts life, but that setbacks, too, contribute to that roughening of the personality that, by providing a textured surface to place against that of life, enables you to leave slight traces, or smudges, on the face of human history-your mark) and after all, benefit-seeking always has something of the smell of raw vanity about it, as if you wished to decorate your own brow with laurel, or wear your medals to a cookout, when the invitation had said nothing about them, and although the ego is always hungry (we are told) it is well to remember that ongoing success is nearly as meaningless as ongoing lack of success, which can make you sick, and that it is good to leave a few crumbs on the table for the rest of your brethren, not to sweep it all into the little beaded purse of your soul but to allow others, too, part of the gratification, and if you share in this way you will find the clouds smiling on you, and the postman bringing you letters, and bicycles available when you want to rent them, and many other signs, however guarded and limited, of the community’s (temporary) approval of you, or at least of it’s willingness to let you believe (temporarily) that it finds you not so lacking in commendable virtues as it had previously allowed you to think, from its scorn of your merits, as it might be put, or anyway its consistent refusal to recognize your basic humanness and its secret blackball of the project of your remaining alive, made in executive session by its ruling bodies, which, as everyone knows, carry out concealed programs of reward and punishment, under the rose, causing faint alterations of the status quo, behind your back, at various points along the periphery of community life, together with other enterprises not dissimilar in tone, such as producing films that have special qualities, or attributes, such as a film where the second half of it is a holy mystery, and girls and women are not permitted to see it, or writing novels in which the final chapter is a plastic bag filled with water, which you can touch, but not drink: in this way, or ways, the underground mental life of the collectivity is botched, or denied, or turned into something else never imagined by the planners, who, returning from the latest seminar in crisis management and being asked what they have learned, say they have learned how to throw up their hands; the sentence meanwhile, although not insensible of these considerations, has a festering conscience of its own, which persuades it to follow its star, and to move with all deliberate speed from one place to another, without losing any of the “riders” it may have picked up just being there, on the page, and turning this way and that, to see what is over there, under that oddly-shaped tree, or over there, reflected in the rain barrel of the imagination, even though it is true that in our young manhood we were taught that short, punchy sentences were best (but what did he mean? doesn’t “punchy” mean punch-drunk? I think he probably intended to say “short, punching sentences,” meaning sentences that lashed out at you, bloodying your brain if possible, and looking up the word just now I came across the nearby “punkah,” which is a large fan suspended from the ceiling in India, operated by an attendant pulling a rope-that is what I want for my sentence, to keep it cool!) we are mature enough now to stand the shock of learning that much of what we were taught in our youth was wrong, or improperly understood by those who were teaching it, or perhaps shaded a bit, the shading resulting from the personal needs of the teachers, who as human beings had a tendency to introduce some of their heart’s blood into their work, and sometimes this may not have been of the first water, this heart’s blood, and even if they thought they were moving the “knowledge” out, as the Board of Education had mandated, they could have noticed that their sentences weren’t having the knockdown power of the new weapons whose bullets tumble end-over-end (but it is true that we didn’t have these weapons at that time) and they might have taken into account the fundamental dubiousness of their project (but all the intelligently conceived projects have been eaten up already, like the moon and the stars) leaving us, in our best clothes, with only things to do like conducting vigorous wars of attrition against our wives, who have now thoroughly come awake, and slipped into their striped bells, and pulled sweaters over their torsi, and adamantly refused to wear any bras under the sweaters, carefully explaining the political significance of this refusal to anyone who will listen, or look, but not touch, because that has nothing to do with it, so they say; leaving us, as it were, with only things to do like floating sheets of Reynolds Wrap around the room, trying to find out how many we can keep in the air at the same time, which at least gives us a sense of participation, as though we were Buddha, looking down at the mystery of your smile, which needs to be investigated, and I think I’ll do that right now, while there’s still enough light, if you’ll sit down over there, in the best chair, and take off all your clothes, and put your feet in that electric toe caddy (which prevents pneumonia) and slip into this permanent press hospital gown, to cover your nakedness-why, if you do all that, we’ll be ready to begin! after I wash my hands, because you pick up an amazing amount of exuviae in this city, just by walking around in the open air, and nodding to acquaintances, and speaking to friends, and copulating with lovers, in the ordinary course (and death to our enemies! by and by)-but I’m getting a little uptight, just about washing my hands, because I can’t find the soap, which somebody has used and not put back in the soap dish, all of which is extremely irritating, if you have a beautiful patient sitting in the examining room, naked inside her gown, and peering at her moles in the mirror, with her immense brown eyes following your every movement (when they are not watching the moles, expecting them, as in a Disney nature film, to exfoliate) and her immense brown head wondering what you’re going to do to her, the pierced places in the head letting that question leak out, while the therapist decides just to wash his hands in plain water, and hang the soap! and does so, and then looks around for a towel, but all the towels have been collected by the towel service, and are not there, so he wipes his hands on his pants, in the back (so as to avoid suspicious stains on the front) thinking: what must she think of me? and, all this is very unprofessional and at-sea looking! trying to visualize the contretemps from her point of view, if she has one (but how can she? she is not in the washroom) and then stopping, because it is finally his own point of view that he cares about and not hers, and with this firmly in mind, and a light, confident step, such as you might find in the works of Bulwer-Lytton, he enters the space she occupies so prettily and, taking her by the hand, proceeds to tear off the stiff white hospital gown (but no, we cannot have that kind of pornographic merde in this majestic and high-minded sentence, which will probably end up in the Library of Congress) (that was just something that took place inside his consciousness, as he looked at her, and since we know that consciousness is always consciousness of something, she is not entirely without responsibility in the matter) so, then, taking her by the hand, he falls into the stupendous white puree of her abyss, no, I mean rather that he asks her how long it has been since her last visit, and she says a fortnight, and he shudders, and tells her that with a condition like hers (she is an immensely popular soldier, and her troops win all their battles by pretending to be forests, the enemy discovering, at the last moment, that those trees they have eaten their lunch under have eyes and swords) (which reminds me of the performance, in 1845, of Robert-Houdin, called The Fantastic Orange Tree, wherein Robert-Houdin borrowed a lady’s handkerchief, rubbed it between his hands and passed it into the center of an egg, after which he passed the egg into the center of a lemon, after which he passed the lemon into the center of an orange, then pressed the orange between his hands, making it smaller and smaller, until only a powder remained, whereupon he asked for a small potted orange tree and sprinkled the powder thereupon, upon which the tree burst into blossom, the blossoms turning into oranges, the oranges turning into butterflies, and the butterflies turning into beautiful young ladies, who then married members of the audience), a condition so damaging to real-time social intercourse of any kind, the best thing she can do is give up, and lay down her arms, and he will lie down in them, and together they will permit themselves a bit of the old slap and tickle, she wearing only her Mr. Christopher medal, on its silver chain, and he (for such is the latitude granted the professional classes) worrying about the sentence, about its thin wires of dramatic tension, which have been omitted, about whether we should write down some natural events occurring in the sky (birds, lightning bolts), and about a possible coup d’etat within the sentence, whereby its chief verb would be-but at this moment a messenger rushes into the sentence, bleeding from a hat of thorns he’s wearing, and cries out: “You don’t know what you’re doing! Stop making this sentence, and begin instead to make Moholy-Nagy cocktails, for those are what we really need, on the frontiers of bad behavior!” and then he falls to the floor, and a trap door opens under him, and he falls through that, into a damp pit where a blue narwhal waits, its horn poised (but maybe the weight of the messenger, falling from such a height, will break off the horn)-thus, considering everything very carefully, in the sweet light of the ceremonial axes, in the run-mad skimble-skamble of information sickness, we must make a decision as to whether we should proceed, or go back, in the latter case enjoying the pathos of eradication, in which the former case reading an erotic advertisement which begins, How to Make Your Mouth a Blowtorch of Excitement (but wouldn’t that overtax our mouthwashes?) attempting, during the pause, while our burned mouths are being smeared with fat, to imagine a better sentence, worthier, more meaningful, like those in the Declaration of Independence, or a bank statement showing that you have seven thousand kroner more than you thought you had-a statement summing up the unreasonable demands that you make on life, and one that also asks the question, if you can imagine these demands, why are they not routinely met, tall fool? but of course it is not that query that this infected sentence has set out to answer (and hello! to our girl friend, Rosetta Stone, who has stuck by us through thick and thin) but some other query that we shall some day discover the nature of, and here comes Ludwig, the expert on sentence construction we have borrowed from the Bauhaus, who will-“Guten Tag, Ludwig!”-probably find a way to cure the sentence’s sprawl, by using the improved way of thinking developed in Weimer-“I am sorry to inform you that the Bauhaus no longer exists, that all of the great masters who formerly thought there are either dead or retired, and that I myself have been reduced to constructing books on how to pass the examination for police sergeant”-and Ludwig falls through the Tugendhat House into the history of man-made objects; a disappointment, to be sure, but it reminds us that the sentence itself is a man-made object, not the one we wanted of course, but still a construction of man, a structure to be treasured for its weakness, as opposed to the strength of stones”

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship.” 2156 words.

“Now they’re going to see who I am, he said to himself in his strong new man’s voice, many years after he had first seen the huge ocean liner without lights and without any sound which passed by the village one night like a great uninhabited place, longer than the whole village and much taller than the steeple of the church, and it sailed by in the darkness toward the colonial city on the other side of the bay that had been fortified against buccaneers, with its old slave port and the rotating light, whose gloomy beams transfigured the village into a lunar encampment of glowing houses and streets of volcanic deserts every fifteen seconds, and even though at that time he’d been a boy without a man’s strong voice but with his’ mother’s permission to stay very late on the beach to listen to the wind’s night harps, he could still remember, as if still seeing it, how the liner would disappear when the light of the beacon struck its side and how it would reappear when the light had passed, so that it was an intermittent ship sailing along, appearing and disappearing, toward the mouth of the bay, groping its way like a sleep‐walker for the buoys that marked the harbor channel, until something must have gone wrong with the compass needle, because it headed toward the shoals, ran aground, broke up, and sank without a single sound, even though a collision against the reefs like that should have produced a crash of metal and the explosion of engines that would have frozen, with fright the soundest‐sleeping dragons in the prehistoric jungle that began with the last streets of the village and ended on the other side of the world, so that he himself thought it was a dream, especially the, next day, when he. saw the radiant fishbowl. of the bay, the disorder of colors of the Negro shacks on the hills above the harbor, the schooners of the smugglers from the Guianas loading their cargoes ‐of innocent parrots whose craws were full of diamonds, he thought, I fell asleep counting the stars and L dreamed about that huge ship, of course, he was so convinced that he didn’t tell anyone nor did he remember the vision again until the same night on the following March when he was looking for the flash of dolphins in the sea and what he found was the illusory line, gloomy, intermittent, with the same mistaken direction as the first time, except that then he was so sure he was awake that he ran to tell his mother and she spent three weeks moaning with disappointment, because your brain’s rotting away from doing so many things backward, sleeping during the day and going out at night like a criminal, and since she had to go to the city around that time to get something comfortable where she could sit and think about her dead husband, because the rockers on her chair had worn out after eleven years of widowhood, she took advantage of the occasion and had the boatman go near the shoals so that her son could see what he really saw in the glass of; the sea, the lovemaking of manta rays in a springtime of sponges, pink snappers and blue corvinas diving into the other wells of softer waters that were there among the waters, and even the wandering hairs of victims of drowning in some colonial shipwreck, no trace of sunken liners of anything like it, and yet he was so pigheaded that his mother promised to watch with him the next March, absolutely, not knowing that the only thing absolute in her future now was an easy chair from the days of Sir Francis Drake which she had bought at an auction in a Turk’s store, in which she sat down to rest that same night sighing, oh, my poor Olofernos, if you could only see how nice it is to think about you on this velvet lining and this brocade from the casket of a queen, but the more she brought back the memory of her dead husband, the more the blood in her heart bubbled up and turned to chocolate, as if instead of sitting down she were running, soaked from chills and fevers and her breathing full of earth, until he returned at dawn and found her dead in the easy chair, still warm, but half rotted away as after a snakebite, the same as happened afterward to four other women before the murderous chair was thrown into the sea, far away where it wouldn’t bring evil to anyone, because it had. been used so much over the centuries that its faculty for giving rest had been used up, and so he had to grow accustomed to his miserable routine of an orphan who was pointed out by everyone as the son of the widow who had brought the throne of misfortune into the village, living not so much from public charity as from fish he stole out of the boats, while his voice was becoming a roar, and not remembering his visions of past times anymore until another night in March when he chanced to look seaward and suddenly, good Lord, there, it is, the huge asbestos whale, the behemoth beast, come see it, he shouted madly, come see it, raising such an uproar of dogs’ barking and women’s panic that even the oldest men remembered the frights of their great‐grandfathers and crawled under their beds, thinking that William Dampier had come back, but those who ran into the street didn’t make the effort to see the unlikely apparatus which at that instant was lost again in the east and raised up in its annual disaster, but they covered him with blows and left him so twisted that it was then he said to himself, drooling with rage, now they’re going to see who I am, but he took care not to share his determination with anyone, but spent the whole year with the fixed idea, now they’re going to see who I am, waiting for it to be the eve of the apparition once more in order to do what he did, which was steal a boat, cross the bay, and spend the evening waiting for his great moment in the inlets of the slave port, in the human brine of the Caribbean, but so absorbed in his adventure that he didn’t stop as he always did in front of the Hindu shops to look at the ivory mandarins carved from the whole tusk of an elephant, nor did he make fun of the Dutch Negroes in their orthopedic velocipedes, nor was he frightened as at other times of the copper‐skinned Malayans, who had gone around the world, enthralled by the chimera of a secret tavern where they sold roast filets of Brazilian women, because he wasn’t aware of anything until night came over him with all the weight of the stars and the jungle exhaled a sweet fragrance of gardenias and rotter salamanders, and there he was, rowing in the stolen boat, toward the mouth of the bay, with the lantern out so as not to alert the customs police, idealized every fifteen seconds by the green wing flap of the beacon and turned human once more by the darkness, knowing that he was getting close to the buoys that marked the harbor, channel, not only because its oppressive glow was getting more intense, but because the breathing of the water was becoming sad, and he rowed like that, so wrapped up in himself, that he. didn’t know where the fearful shark’s breath that suddenly reached him came from or why the night became dense, as if the stars had suddenly died, and it was because the liner was there, with all of its inconceivable size, Lord, bigger than, any other big thing in the world and darker than any other dark thing on land or sea, three hundred thousand tons of shark smell passing so close to the boat that he could see the seams of the steel precipice without a single light in the infinite portholes, without a sigh from the engines, without a soul, and carrying its own circle of silence with it, its own dead air, its halted time, its errant sea in which a whole world of drowned animals floated, and suddenly it all disappeared with the flash of the beacon and for an instant it was the diaphanous Caribbean once more, the March night, the everyday air of the pelicans, so he stayed alone among the buoys, not knowing what to do, asking himself, startled, if perhaps he wasn’t dreaming while he was awake, not just now but the other times too, but no sooner had. he asked himself than a breath of mystery snuffled out the buoys, from the first to the last, so that when the light of the beacon passed by the liner appeared again and now its compasses were out of order, perhaps not even knowing what part of the ocean sea it was in, groping for the invisible channel but actually heading for the shoals, until he got the overwhelming revelation that that misfortune of the buoys was the last key to the enchantment and he lighted the lantern in the boat, a tiny red light that had no reason to alarm anyone in the watch towers but which would be like a guiding sun for the pilot, because, thanks to it, the liner corrected its course and passed into the main gate of the channel in a maneuver of lucky resurrection, and then all the lights went on at the same time so that the boilers wheezed again, the stars were fixed in their places, and the animal corpses went to the bottom, and there was a clatter of plates and a fragrance of laurel sauce in the kitchens, and one could hear the pulsing of the orchestra on the moon decks and the throbbing of the arteries of high‐sea lovers in the shadows of the staterooms, but he still carried so much leftover rage in him that he would not let himself be confused by emotion or be frightened by the miracle, but said to himself with more decision than ever, now they’re going to see who I am, the cowards, now they’re going to see, and instead of turning aside so that the colossal machine would not charge into him he began to row in front of it, because now they really are going to see who I am, and he continued guiding the ship with the lantern until he was so sure of its obedience that he made it change course from the direction of the docks once more, took it out of the invisible channel, and led it by the halter as if it were a sea lamb toward the lights of the sleeping village, a living ship, invulnerable to the torches of the beacon, that no longer made invisible but made it aluminum every fifteen seconds, and the crosses of the church, the misery of the houses, the illusion began to stand out and still the ocean liner followed behind him, following his will inside of it, the captain asleep on his heart side, the fighting bulls in the snow of their pantries, the solitary patient in the infirmary, the orphan water of its cisterns, the unredeemed pilot who must have mistaken the cliffs for the docks, because at that instant the great roar of the whistle burst forth, once, and he with downpour of steam that fell on him, again, and the boat belonging to someone else was on the point of capsizing, and again, but it was too late, because there were the shells of the shoreline, the stones of the street, the doors of the disbelievers, the whole village illuminated by the lights of the fearsome liner itself, and he barely had time to get out of the way to make room for the cataclysm, shouting in the midst of the confusion, there it is, you cowards, a second before the huge steel cask shattered the ground and one could hear the neat destruction of ninety thousand five hundred champagne glasses breaking, one after the other, from stem to stern, and then the light came out and it was no longer a March dawn but the noon of a radiant Wednesday, and he was able to give himself the pleasure of watching the disbelievers as with open mouths they contemplated the largest ocean liner in this world and the other aground in front of the church, whiter than anything, twenty times taller than the steeple and some ninety‐seven times longer than the village, with its name engraved in iron letters, Halalcsillag, and the ancient and languid waters of the sea of death dripping down its sides.”

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16 comments

Excellently written and presented, this is a must have for everyone who loves literature.

Bro your literally a bum

I am reminded of an English class in high school wherein our teacher challenged three teams to diagram the first sentence in “You Can Never Go Home Again” by Thomas Wolfe. It runs for over a page and took us two disassembled grocery sacks to complete. We succeeded and the reward was to skip diagramming from then on. Result? The brainier kids were heroes, temporarily, and the class delved into literature. Very clever teacher!

such quote unquote cutey pie teachers ought be shot

Bravo, Ken! May teachers such as you be showered with rewards — such as a living salary.

wow that’s incredible 👏

131 sentence in Blindness:

“The city was hit by an epidemic of “white blindness” which spares no one, everyone who falls victim to it is left with a blank gaze as if sunk in an ocean of milk, this white sickness which had spread through the city like wildfire was more contagious than the common cold although no one knew how it was transmitted and there was no preventative or curative treatment for it, doctors were powerless against it and their waiting rooms were filled with people who bumped into each other, stumbled around, moaned, wept, coughed, blew their noses, groped for handkerchiefs in vain, cursed their fate and that of others, prayed to God or the Devil, wept for their mothers, fathers or children who they could no longer see or hear or touch”

You forgot the 3 pager in “Sound and the Fury” and the big one containing botanical descriptions in “Name of the Rose.”

Dude That Was A Lot Of Words

shut the hell up yall dumb as hell

literally dog

I now feel better about my 100 word sentence in my novel

how long did that take?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???!?!?!?!?!?

Every writer NEEDS this book.

It’s a guide to writing the pivotal moments of your novel.

Whether writing your book or revising it, this will be the most helpful book you’ll ever buy.

Learn how to:

• Nail chapter endings
• Surprise your reader with plot twists
• Describe a character for the first time
• Write a killer ending

80 Apology Paragraphs Straight From The Heart

By Author Lauren Levine

Categories Quotes

Choosing the right words to say sorry to someone you hurt can be tricky. So I collected the best apology paragraphs available online and I’m sure they’ll help you restore much-needed trust, peace, and harmony. Let’s take a look!

Best Apology Paragraphs

1. “My tears are dropping as looking at the raindrops. I remember the moments we shared. As the rain soaks in my skin, I remember our love and realize how stupid I am for hurting you. I’m sorry.”

2. “You’re the only person I can tell all my secrets to, the first person I want to talk to when I wake up, and the last person I want to talk to before I drift off to sleep. I am so sorry for betraying your trust. Your trust is a treasure that I did not treat well. I will work hard to earn that trust back from you.”

3. “Every time I hurt you, I put blisters in myself. Every time I make you angry, I am belittling myself, Every time I complain to you, I downgrade myself. Please forgive me, my love.”

4. “I am sorry for being such a fool. But I am a fool who is in love with you. I am sorry for what I did. I will wait forever if that is how long you need to forgive me. Please accept my sincere apology.”

5. “I am an imperfect being, but this does not justify the mistakes that I have made. I understand that even if I say sorry, it will not change anything. However, I will keep my promise that I will change because I want to become a better person for you.”

6. “You helped me to become a better person. Honestly, I am trying hard to become better for you. I’m sorry that I have hurt you. I humbly ask for your forgiveness.”

7. “I am the luckiest person on this planet to have a partner like you. But I always cause you some headaches. I promise to become the best person that you can be proud of. I’m sorry for the wrongdoings I did.”

8. “I miss the moments when we laugh together, cry together, and tap our backs together. But I hurt you and caused pain you pain. Please remember the happy moments we shared and forgive me.”

9. “You are my priceless love. I’m sorry for not listening to you and going the other way. I realize the huge mistake I commit. I am sorry for hurting you my love .”

10. “I can make the ground shake because of my love. My love can shatter the earth. My heart broke when you left me. I regret and am angry with myself for doing such a stupid act. Please forgive me.”

11. “I may be too late. You may already be gone. Or should I say that I am the one who may be gone from your heart?”

12. “I wish I could travel back in time and not make a mistake. I wish to take back the pain. I wish to fill those pains with joy. I am sorry.”

13. “I feel shame for what I said to you. A simple I’m sorry message may not be enough. But I am willing to do everything to get you back and be my one and only true love.”

14. “How I wish I could turn back the hands of time and unsay everything I said back then. I never meant to be mean. Please, forgive me.”

15. “I don’t deserve you, and that’s why I am apologizing with this sorry message. You are my only true love. If we are meant to be, then somehow, we will make it work. Please forgive me.”

16. “I know sorry is not enough, but you cross my mind every single day. Life without you is difficult and meaningless. Making you happy is my only motto. I’m afraid to lose you. I promise this is the last time. Forgive me, my baby!”

17. “Words can’t describe how sad I’m that I broke your heart. Please forgive me and give me a place in your heart. I cannot live like this. I apologize for everything I did. Without you, my life is nothing.”

18. “I was such a fool to make an argument. Please forgive me, and let me right all my wrongs. I feel like you are miles away from me. After this argument, I realized how much you mean in my life. I’m sorry, baby!”

19. “The biggest mistake I ever made was allowing pride to come in between us. How I wish I had let it off earlier, we wouldn’t be here today. I’m willing to do anything to get back to you again.”

20. “I am in the park, and the sunlight reminds me of your beautiful hair. It reminds me of the laughter and smile we had. I am still waiting for you. I will never stop waiting for you. I am deeply sorry.”

I’m Sorry Paragraphs

1. “My world breaks apart when I see you crying. My heart breaks into pieces realizing I hurt you. I can neither bear this pain nor see you like this. My heart has already been shattered into pieces. I’m sorry!”

2. “I know you are mad at me right now. I hate seeing you cry. I have myself realizing that I have hurt you. Please, give us a chance to fix this.”

3. “Can we, please, bury the argument and move on? I know this is unforgivable. I know you can never love me like before, but I cannot lose you, baby. Sorry, the love of my life!”

4. “Baby, we promised not to allow anything to get in our way. I’m sorry for the mistake I did that disappointed you and made you angry. I hope and pray that you can forgive me.”

5. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I’m sending you this love message in a card to let you know that I love everything about you, always, every single day.”

6. “Yesterday was the saddest moment for me as I cannot believe that we made a fight last night. I’m sorry for whatever the cause is. I promise that I will change and become good to you.”

See also: 100 Couple Love Fight Quotes To Share With Your Partner

7. “Since the time you accepted me and allowed me to love you, all I ever wanted was to make you happy. I think my effort is not enough, as it did not appear that much. I am sorry for being insensitive. I ask for your forgiveness.”

8. “Our relationship is tested like gold in a fire. It becomes more refined and stronger. May you give me your forgiveness.”

9. “Please excuse my behavior last week. Your criticism was completely justified, and I should have reacted differently to it.”

10. “When we made our vows, we both accepted that we both have small potholes in life. These potholes are the challenges in the freeway of our married life. Can we fix our potholes together?”

11. “When we made our promises in front of the minister, I knew at that time that half of me was in you. Now that we are in this situation, I feel down and cannot function well. Please forgive me.”

12. “Our relationship is still sweet, even if you add a little saltiness. I’m sorry for the silly mistakes that I have made. I know what I did wasn’t cool. I’m sorry.”

13. “Yesterday was the best time of my life. Thank you for hugging me despite the wrong actions that I have done. You are truly my best friend and lover. I’m truly sorry for hurting you.”

14. “Your presence is like heaven to me. You comforted me. Now that a single mistake made it dull, I feel alone and sorry. Please forgive me.”

15. “It’s not easy to apologize. I hope you see my apology comes from the heart. And I hope you put our love above my mistake.”

16. “They say the best apology is to change your behavior. Let’s spend time together again so that I can show you my new behavior.”

17. “I’m sorry I’m not perfect, and I haven’t been working on it. But you are perfect to me, and I could still learn from you if you let me.”

18. “I truly care about you and love you like crazy. I know a huge amount of sorry messages cannot fix your heart. But I will try my level best to make you happy. I’m sorry, my love.”

19. “I should never say those words to you. I cannot lose you, baby. The only thing I can do right now is to think about you. Seeing you like this shatters my heart. Sorry for breaking your heart, baby.”

20. “I’m sorry that I messed up. But I’ll fix everything, sweetheart. I can live without your love and care, baby. I can fix everything if you give me a last chance. I realized that I was wrong, and so I’m sorry!”

Apology Paragraphs For Her Copy And Paste

1. “You are the only person who taught me that asking for humble forgiveness is the bravest thing I can ever do. It frustrates me because I hurt the feelings of the number 1 woman in my life. That is you, sweetheart. I’m sorry, and I ask for your forgiveness.”

2. “I’m sorry for the wrongdoings I did that disappointed you. You are the best girlfriend in the world, for you never stop being on my side despite my inequities. Please forgive me.”

3. “I’m sorry, my dear, for the pride of my heart. It took time for me to realize that being proud is also breaking you as my wife. I promise to do my very best never to let it happen again.”

4. “May you feel the sincerity of my apology? I’m very sorry for hurting you so much. I’m sorry for the hurting words that came out of my mouth. Please, I am asking for your forgiveness.”

5. “Without you, my life is falling apart. I am a hopeless, miserable man who doesn’t know what to do with his life anymore. Please don’t leave me in this abyss. Forgive my mistakes and stay with me.”

6. “I feel like an idiot, thinking that everything that happened is because of my immature mindset. I regret what happened. I wish I could still have the chance to come back and give you my warm, loving arms. I love you so much, and I am deeply sorry.”

7. “Every day and every night, I am haunted by my thoughts because of the pain I caused you. I regret giving you tears instead of laughter. I really messed up. Please forgive me.”

See also: 90 Best I’m Sorry Paragraphs For Her When You Messed Up

8. “I am too much of an idiot to make such a mistake and cost you to lose your trust in me. Believe me, it is never my intention. I’m sorry, and please forgive me.”

9. “My sweet wife, I’m sorry for being rude and hurting you with my bad mouth. The stress I have in my work is not a good reason for doing such cruelty. Please give me your forgiveness.”

10. “I love you more deeply as you showed me how strong you are as a woman who stood up and corrected me for the mistakes I made. It helped me change my heart and mind. Thank you. I’m sorry for being immature.”

See also: 100 Best I’m Sorry Paragraphs For Her To Make Her Forgive You

Apology Paragraphs For Him

1. “For the last few days, I have felt so lonely. I’m missing the sweetest hug from my man. I miss the nice words while my man is talking. I miss the kindest smile of my man. I am sorry, honey, please forgive me for my actions that hurt you.”

See also: 190 Heartfelt I Miss You Baby Quotes For Emotional Souls

2. “I am ready to do anything. I am ready to do everything. I am ready to take away all the hurt I made you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

3. “You are the hottest guy that deserves the most understanding girlfriend. I’m sorry for the tantrums that caused you to be annoyed. I promise to throw them away and choose you to be my comfort.”

4. “I’m sorry about the mistrust I give you. I realize that I have been so unfair towards you. Can I put my fingers in the spaces between your fingers back again? I love you.”

5. “I’m sorry for making you annoyed with my jealousy and possessive attitude. I am just afraid of the other girls. I promise to work out my temper and trust in your love.”

6. “I feel the pain of realizing that such a small mistake made us suffer like this. What a stupid act of mine. Can we not let our relationship end this way? Please accept me. Please forgive me.”

7. “I am now feeling the emptiness. How can I function now without you? I’m shedding tears because of the stupid mistake. I’m sorry, my love. Please forgive me.”

8. “Dear, I am guilty of what I have done. I beg your forgiveness. You are a man with a big heart. I love you even in times of challenges like this. This will never happen again.”

9. “A handsome, stunning, and loving man can never be mad at me. Please forgive me. I hope we can be back to normal mode because I miss you now.”

10. “Ever since we decided to date, we have met plenty of setbacks, bad times, and challenges. Yet, we never give up and never allow those to rotten our relationship. Can we not let it happen this time?”

See also: Top 120 Most Emotional Sorry Messages For Boyfriend

More Love Paragraphs To Say Sorry

1. “My dearest love, I don’t deserve forgiveness, but I request you to forgive me this time. I know my faults are huge, and I am a bad person to love. But trust me, you were always my first priority and will forever be. I’m sorry.”

2. “I know I’m imperfect, and I make mistakes. I promise not to make the same mistake again to hurt you. I never meant to tell you those words. I’m extremely sorry, and please forgive me, baby.”

3. “I want to enjoy the rest of my life with you. Please forgive me, baby. I won’t hurt you again. No one in this world cannot replace you, and I’m ashamed of myself.”

4. “I’m sorry for neglecting you while giving priority to other people and things. All I can say is I’m ashamed of myself for not treating you properly. Please give me another chance and let me fix everything in the right place.”

5. “While I hurt you, I hurt myself two times more. My heart is filled with sorrow. I’m always ready to make you happy, and I will make you happy in the future. Just give me one chance.”

6. “I’m sorry, babe, for hiding the truth from you. Please believe in me, and I will make everything like before. I am reassured that I will always be there for you, no matter what comes my way. I’m begging you to forgive me.”

7. “I love you, and I want you to know that I am very sorry, babe, for everything I did. You are the perfect partner anyone could ask for. I’m ashamed that I made an argument with you. Please give me time, and I’ll make everything like it used to be.”

8. “I don’t know what to do, knowing that I am the reason behind your tears. I just cling on to the hope that one day you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

9. “You know how much I hate writing love letters, but for you, I can do anything. Whether it is writing a hundred apology letters. I am writing to let you know that I admit I did wrong to you, and I am sorry. I keep on disappointing you, but you keep on loving me. Please give me one last chance.”

10. “You are my sunshine. You light up my world as no one else can. I am sorry for letting you go. Without you, it’s darkness everywhere. Please forgive me. I will do anything to win your heart back.”

11. “You’ve occupied all of my thoughts. Things are beginning to fall out of place because the only person that gives me life isn’t here with me. Please find it in your heart to forgive me. I love you.”

12. “I am so sorry that my words and actions made you cry. I was not thinking. What can I do to make things better? I would do anything to make you smile again.”

13. “I always believe you are a person with a big heart. I would like to ask for another chance. I am asking humbly for your forgiveness for the things that disappoint you. I will never do this again.”

14. “Since the day you left, my life has crumbled into pieces. I find nowhere to go, and I am so lost. I have realized that without you in my life, it’s empty and incomplete. Please come back. I promise never to break your heart again.”

15. “You know I have never been good at words. So I don’t know if I am choosing the right words or not, but I know that what I feel is true, and I am truly ashamed of what I did. I am sorry.”

16. “My life is a mess without you. How on earth did you think I could live without you being by my side? I miss your good morning messages and your good night wishes. Please forgive me.”

17. “I don’t care how many times I have to say sorry to get your apology. I will do anything to make you happy again. Please never stop loving me. I am sorry for my stupid behavior. Please respond to my text message and let me prove it.”

18. “Before meeting you, I never knew life could be this beautiful. And now, when you are mad at me, there is nothing in this world that makes me happy. All I want is another chance.”

19. “I didn’t know my words would only push you further away. Please forgive me. Just give me one more chance to right my mistake. And I promise, my love, you won’t ever regret doing that.”

20. “My love, I just wanted to let you know that there is nothing in this world that is more dear to me than you are. I know things are not good between us right now, but I know that the love between us will not let you stay angry. I am sorry.”

Final Words

No matter the wrongdoings you may have done, don’t hesitate to use one of the great apology paragraphs from this list to say sorry and ask for forgiveness.

Your sincere apology paragraph will be much appreciated and will definitely get you closer to being forgiven.

Until next time!

51 Sweet And Memorable Long Paragraphs For Your Special Guy To Copy And Paste

Sometimes, you know just what to say to show the man in your life how you feel about him.

You’ve written long paragraphs for him before, and he treasures them. 

Some days, though, your tired brain just can’t string the right words together.

So, on those days, look through this list of love paragraphs for him, and find the ones that say just what you want to say. 

It’s only cheating if you don’t mean them.

51 Long Paragraphs for Him to Copy and Paste 

Enjoy this long list of paragraphs for him to copy, paste, and treasure. We’ve divided them into groups to make the right messages easier to find. 

Long Paragraphs for Your Boyfriend to Make Him Cry

1. I still cannot believe I get to call you my boyfriend . I’ve never known anyone as thoughtful, intelligent, generous, funny, or compassionate. You constantly challenge me to be better and to do my best even when I’m not feeling it. I can’t imagine a life without you anymore. You’re the hero I’ve always wanted. 

2. Wouldn’t it be great if, once you fell in love with someone and them with you, you kept learning and growing together, and the romance was always there, even if some days, it only simmered? I never thought that wish would come true, but with you, it has. And it’s even better than I expected. 

3. I never expected to meet someone who showed as much interest as you have in really knowing me to my core. You never assume I'll do something hurtful just because someone else has. And you don’t let other people’s treatment of you change the way you treat me—or anyone else. 

4. I feel most like myself when I'm with you. Because I never feel that you expect me to be something else. I never feel like an embarrassment to you. It seems like a small thing, but it's not. You have no idea how much I’ve been missing you all my life. 

5. From the beginning, you've made room in your life for me. You haven't wedged me in but actually created a space where I could thrive. I never doubt that I'm an irreplaceable part of your life. And I don’t even want to think about a life without you. 

6. When you asked me to be your girlfriend, I knew it cost you something. You took a risk because you weren’t sure I would say yes. With you, I always feel that I’m worth the risk of embarrassment. You’ll dance right up to me in public, knowing other people are watching, just to make me smile. And how could I not?

7. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate qualities I didn’t think of before, and you have all the best of them. You’re confident, even bold, without being arrogant. You’re quick to have my back without speaking for me or over me. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, and I mean that. I’m at my best when I’m with you. 

8. I’m not the person I was ten or even five years ago, and you don’t expect me to be–or to fit some preconceived idea of what I should be good at or willing to do for your benefit. You’ve seen me at my worst, and you’re still here, loving me as much as (or maybe even more than) ever. You’re a miracle to me. 

9. I love doing things for you. And I love that you do things for me without expecting to be praised or rewarded for it (or else, why bother?). You just do it because you want to do something nice for me. Often enough, I don’t even know it’s you. But I’m always glad when I find out.

10. You’re the most thoughtful gift-giver I know. From the beginning, you bothered to find out what I liked. And even since we became a couple, you’ve never stopped trying to know me better and choose birthday and other gifts you know I’ll use and enjoy. You truly want to know me better than anyone, and it shows. 

We Had a Great Day Together Paragraphs for Him 

11. I had the best day with you! And I can hardly wait to see you again, even if all we do is hang out and watch a movie or just talk. Thank you for being such a great listener, storyteller, and conversationalist. I love listening to you, and I love the way you listen to me. 

12. Any day spent with you is a good one, and today was a great example of why that’s true. Whether we both know what we’re about to do or you’ve planned a surprise, I know I’ll have a good time with you. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in the world. 

13. You’ve completely reinvented fun for me. I never used to feel comfortable acting the way you do in public, not caring what people think. Thanks to you, I step outside my comfort zone a lot more than I thought possible. And I’ve learned more about myself than I knew was there. 

14. You’re my favorite road trip companion , my favorite movie-watching buddy, my favorite dinner conversationalist, my favorite everything. Whatever we do today and wherever we go, I’m just grateful to be with you. I’d follow you anywhere. 

15. When you come over, I know you won’t spend the time with your eyes glued to your phone. And you won’t use the time to retell stories about yourself I’ve heard several times over—with little or no interest in whatever I might try to say (when I can get a word in). You don’t know what a huge and welcome change that is. 

16. I love how, wherever we go, you walk beside me—not ahead of me or behind me. And you always hold the door for me or anyone close behind, without a smug “Aren’t I a gentleman?” look on your face. It’s almost as if it’s second nature to you, even if some don’t react favorably. You’re thoughtful without giving it a thought.

17. It’s official: you’re my favorite camping buddy. I never thought it could be as much fun as it was with you. Thank you for making a night sleeping on the ground far more rewarding than it has any right to be. And thanks for knowing how to make good coffee with the percolator. 

18. Finally, I have someone to go on roller coasters with who loves them as much as I do! Have I asked you lately where you’ve been all my life? You make a thrill ride even more thrilling. If I ever get to try psychedelic drugs (for research), I want you there as my trip-sitter. I trust you with my life. 

19. Thank you for our fun and relaxing night at the movie and the stop afterward at your favorite cafe for pie. I enjoyed the movie, but even more than that, just sitting in the cafe with you and talking. I’ve never had as much fun just talking to someone. And you seemed to enjoy listening at least as much as talking. 

20. You really do know how to show someone a good time–first by bothering to learn what they enjoy and then by finding a way to make it even more enjoyable. You have a gift for that, and I always look forward to spending time with you, even when we’re both tired and just want to hang out. I love being where you are. 

How Much You Love Your Boyfriend Paragraphs

21. The last guy I dated loved to hear himself talk but didn’t show much interest in what I said. You’ve somehow found a balance between doing all the talking yourself and leaving all the talking to me. I never realized until I met you how great that could be. You’re my favorite person to talk to. 

22. I’ve never been a big fan of cloning, but I suddenly get why someone would want to duplicate a specific person’s set of gifts and personality traits. I know there’s more to you than that, but I wish the world were full of people like you. It would be better. 

23. I love how you know just what to say to help me shake off the funk and do something to turn it around. I also love that when I need downtime, you’re the first to encourage me to take it. You spoil me without overwhelming me with attention; you respect my space without leaving me alone. You’re my person. 

24. I’ve needed you in my life for so long, but I didn’t know what I was missing until you became a bigger part of it. I’m grateful for every day I get to call you my boyfriend and every day I get to spend with you. You help me make sense of everything–or as much sense as can be made of it. I love the way you see things. 

25. I love talking to people (anyone who will listen, really) about you. You’re my favorite person to talk about, and the more I get to know you, the more I wish I’d known you forever. Just knowing you and being someone in your orbit has changed me, and I’m grateful. 

26. Every space you make your own has the right balance of design and functionality. You don’t hold onto things that don’t serve you. I also know you don’t need a girlfriend to feel like a success. I’m in your life because you want me just the way I am—and no one else. You see me, and I see you. 

27. I love that you don’t need to have a big house, nice cars, or expensive suits to feel like you’re a success. You don’t need or want a wife and kids just because your peers have them. I’m not just a replaceable role-filler to you. You know me better than anyone, and I love everything about you. 

28. I love everything about you—including the parts you’re less proud of. You don’t have a fake bone in your body, and I know you mean every word you say. I love, too, that you always try to understand perspectives other than your own. You know real kindness takes an effort, and you make it—without expecting praise for it.

29. Everyone who knows me knows how I feel about you. And they tease me without mercy, especially since they remember how certain I was that I would be single for the rest of my life. I don’t mind being single, but it can’t compare with being loved by you. 

30. I want the world to know how much I love my boyfriend—even if that word seems too small to describe what you are to me. You are the best part of the world I live in, and every day with you is special and worth whatever the rest of the day throws at me. Just let me spend some of it with you, and I’m happy. 

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Long Paragraphs for Him to Make Him Smile

31. Thank you for making space in your life for me. I never feel that I’m just an addition to your collection of things or symbols of success. I love that you can enjoy yourself wherever you are and whatever your means. You’re what real success means to me. I want to be more like you when I grow up. 

32. I enjoy myself so much with you that I don’t even miss alcohol or anything else I used to depend on to feel good or forget whatever was hurting. I wouldn’t call this an addiction, but I do need you in my life— you, not just someone like you. There’s no one else like you. You’re my person. 

33. I want to have a place that’s just for us. I want to have a song that’s just ours. I want to have a dance that you only do for me. I could watch you dance all day (it’s one of my favorite things). You make everything and every place better. 

34. You’re like a mug of my favorite tea, plus my favorite song coming on the radio, plus the perfect shortbread cookie, plus the most gorgeous weather imaginable—except a hundred times better than all that put together. 

35. I want you to know it mattered that you were there for me when I was hurting, even when it cost you something you’d been looking forward to for weeks; I didn’t ask, but you insisted. And you never made me feel that you resented me for it. Nothing you do for me has baggage or “Happy, now?” strings attached.  

36. The more I get to know you, the more I catch myself wondering how you would handle a particular situation—or what you would think of something. I love that you seem just as interested in what I think or what I would say. We’re in each other’s heads. And I like my head better with you in it. 

37. Thank you for gently encouraging me to rethink things I thought I knew. You often have this insight or bit of knowledge that turns one of my beliefs on its head, but you’re never a condescending jerk about it. It’s one of your best traits. Because of you, I question things more. Life is a lot more interesting with you in it. 

38. I like myself better when I see myself through your eyes. You’ve never felt a need to apologize to others for me as if I reflect poorly on you. You’re more likely to humiliate yourself just to help me feel supported or more at ease. Thank you for always being in my corner. 

39. It’s refreshing to spend time with someone who doesn’t see me as a human filling for a domestic role. What I say and think actually matters to you. I’m not an accessory with a “best friend” label that ultimately means nothing. I love the way you love me. And I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. 

40. No matter what your peers feel they need to be happy, you act as if I’m your greatest treasure. Our relationship means more to you than all the wealth and prestige in the world. You don’t complain about having to work or not having all the trappings of “success” by a certain age. You are all the wealth I need. 

41. I love how you seem to know exactly what I like without my even asking for it — not because you read my mind but because you pay attention. You care enough to know me as I am, weaknesses and all. You don’t treat me like a fragile and dependent princess but like your best friend and queen. I love you more every day. 

Sweet Paragraphs for Him

42. Thanks to you, every day is 100x better, even if I can’t spend it with you, just because you’ve inspired me to make changes that have me waking up with a smile, excited about what the day holds and what I’ll be doing. I don’t know how you did it, but I’m glad you did. And I can’t wait to see you again! 

43. Somehow, I trust that you would never speak ill of me to anyone even if we broke up. You would never play the victim and say disparaging things to make people pity you and hate me for your sake. You inspire me always to be kind and to give others the benefit of the doubt, even if it costs me. 

44. Thank you for helping me see what I truly want, apart from what the people in my life want — for themselves or for me. Whether you intended to or not, you’ve helped me clear away the fog and see myself more clearly. Whatever happens, I’m glad I know you. 

45. You’ve made me better. You’re everything humans should aspire to be. Just knowing you has opened my eyes to what’s possible, and life is so much brighter and more beautiful than it was without you. You’ve brought me to life. 

46. Every song that plays reminds me of you somehow, and always in the best way. I’m reminded by so many things around me, wherever I go, which is why I’m smiling a lot more than I used to during my commute and while I’m running errands. You’re everywhere I go, and I love that. I love you. 

47. The love messages I write now are different from those I wrote twenty, ten, or even five years ago. The older I get, the more clearly I see what I want and why. And you’re the person whose company and conversation I enjoy most. I didn’t know that, though, until I learned to enjoy my own company first. 

48. I think this is the first time I actually feel like someone’s best friend–not just someone who’s supposed to be the best friend as well as whatever else I’m supposed to be as a wife. You don’t just call me your best friend; you treat me like one. You always have my back, even when I’m not there. I trust you wholeheartedly.

49. You’re always working on yourself–and always working toward a goal you’ve set for your life. Every day, you do something that gets you closer and helps you become the person you want to be. I admire that, and I love watching you work on something that matters to you. I love being around you. 

50. You have an effortless way about you, though I know it’s taken effort to cultivate that. You take care of the body you have without being ruled by it. You give yourself what you need without worrying about what others might think. And you encourage me to do the same. I’m a much healthier person, thanks to your influence. 

51. I’ve liked being single, but I like my life better when you’re in it. Even before we became something more than friends, you made a difference in how I live every day. My habits are healthier, and I’m a happier, more peaceful, and grateful person with you. Loving you with my whole being comes easily. 

Now that you’ve looked through all 51 love paragraphs for the man in your life, which ones stood out for you? Which ones sounded most relevant to your situation?

Whether you’re in a new relationship , or you just want the man in your life to know how much you appreciate him and everything he does, we hope you find several messages you can’t wait to share with him. 

Which one will be the first? 

This 1,288-Word Run-On Sentence Broke Records and Inspired Hundreds of Modern Writers

William Faulkner in 1954 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons Public Domain) This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase, My Modern Met may earn an affiliate commission. Please read our disclosure for more info.

Most book lovers would agree that coming across a very long sentence in a novel can sometimes require multiple reads to comprehend. The world of literature is full of examples of sprawling monologues and multi-line descriptions, but it was American writer William Faulkner who was featured in the 1983 Guinness Book of World Records for his lengthy passage from his 1936 book, Absalom, Absalom!

The huge run-on sentence consists of 1,288 words and countless clauses. It takes patience to read, but once you get into the rhythm, it’s like delving into Faulkner’s stream of consciousness. The experimental writer’s sentence style inspired hundreds of writers since, including Samuel Beckett, Virginia Woolf, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and other masters of modern literature.

Nowadays, postmodern fiction writers such as John Barth are still influenced by Faulkner’s run-on technique. He once said, “It was Faulkner at his most involuted and incantatory who most enchanted me.” The current record holder for the longest english sentence is Jonathan Coe for his staggering 33-page, 13,955-word sentence in The Rotter’s Club , 2001. Though the record has been broken, Faulkner's legacy lives on.

William Faulkner was featured in 1983 Guinness Book of World Records for this 1,288-word sentence from Absalom, Absalom! Try to read it without getting out of breath.

Just exactly like Father if Father had known as much about it the night before I went out there as he did the day after I came back thinking Mad impotent old man who realized at last that there must be some limit even to the capabilities of a demon for doing harm, who must have seen his situation as that of the show girl, the pony, who realizes that the principal tune she prances to comes not from horn and fiddle and drum but from a clock and calendar, must have seen himself as the old wornout cannon which realizes that it can deliver just one more fierce shot and crumble to dust in its own furious blast and recoil, who looked about upon the scene which was still within his scope and compass and saw son gone, vanished, more insuperable to him now than if the son were dead since now (if the son still lived) his name would be different and those to call him by it strangers and whatever dragon’s outcropping of Sutpen blood the son might sow on the body of whatever strange woman would therefore carry on the tradition, accomplish the hereditary evil and harm under another name and upon and among people who will never have heard the right one; daughter doomed to spinsterhood who had chosen spinsterhood already before there was anyone named Charles Bon since the aunt who came to succor her in bereavement and sorrow found neither but instead that calm absolutely impenetrable face between a homespun dress and sunbonnet seen before a closed door and again in a cloudy swirl of chickens while Jones was building the coffin and which she wore during the next year while the aunt lived there and the three women wove their own garments and raised their own food and cut the wood they cooked it with (excusing what help they had from Jones who lived with his granddaughter in the abandoned fishing camp with its collapsing roof and rotting porch against which the rusty scythe which Sutpen was to lend him, make him borrow to cut away the weeds from the door-and at last forced him to use though not to cut weeds, at least not vegetable weeds -would lean for two years) and wore still after the aunt’s indignation had swept her back to town to live on stolen garden truck and out o f anonymous baskets left on her front steps at night, the three of them, the two daughters negro and white and the aunt twelve miles away watching from her distance as the two daughters watched from theirs the old demon, the ancient varicose and despairing Faustus fling his final main now with the Creditor’s hand already on his shoulder, running his little country store now for his bread and meat, haggling tediously over nickels and dimes with rapacious and poverty-stricken whites and negroes, who at one time could have galloped for ten miles in any direction without crossing his own boundary, using out of his meagre stock the cheap ribbons and beads and the stale violently-colored candy with which even an old man can seduce a fifteen-year-old country girl, to ruin the granddaughter o f his partner, this Jones-this gangling malaria-ridden white man whom he had given permission fourteen years ago to squat in the abandoned fishing camp with the year-old grandchild-Jones, partner porter and clerk who at the demon’s command removed with his own hand (and maybe delivered too) from the showcase the candy beads and ribbons, measured the very cloth from which Judith (who had not been bereaved and did not mourn) helped the granddaughter to fashion a dress to walk past the lounging men in, the side-looking and the tongues, until her increasing belly taught her embarrassment-or perhaps fear;-Jones who before ’61 had not even been allowed to approach the front of the house and who during the next four years got no nearer than the kitchen door and that only when he brought the game and fish and vegetables on which the seducer-to-be’s wife and daughter (and Clytie too, the one remaining servant, negro, the one who would forbid him to pass the kitchen door with what he brought) depended on to keep life in them, but who now entered the house itself on the (quite frequent now) afternoons when the demon would suddenly curse the store empty of customers and lock the door and repair to the rear and in the same tone in which he used to address his orderly or even his house servants when he had them (and in which he doubtless ordered Jones to fetch from the showcase the ribbons and beads and candy) direct Jones to fetch the jug, the two of them (and Jones even sitting now who in the old days, the old dead Sunday afternoons of monotonous peace which they spent beneath the scuppernong arbor in the back yard, the demon lying in the hammock while Jones squatted against a post, rising from time to time to pour for the demon from the demijohn and the bucket of spring water which he had fetched from the spring more than a mile away then squatting again, chortling and chuckling and saying `Sho, Mister Tawm’ each time the demon paused)-the two of them drinking turn and turn about from the jug and the demon not lying down now nor even sitting but reaching after the third or second drink that old man’s state of impotent and furious undefeat in which he would rise, swaying and plunging and shouting for his horse and pistols to ride single-handed into Washington and shoot Lincoln (a year or so too late here) and Sherman both, shouting, ‘Kill them! Shoot them down like the dogs they are!’ and Jones: ‘Sho, Kernel; sho now’ and catching him as he fell and commandeering the first passing wagon to take him to the house and carry him up the front steps and through the paintless formal door beneath its fanlight imported pane by pane from Europe which Judith held open for him to enter with no change, no alteration in that calm frozen face which she had worn for four years now, and on up the stairs and into the bedroom and put him to bed like a baby and then lie down himself on the floor beside the bed though not to sleep since before dawn the man on the bed would stir and groan and Jones would say, ‘flyer I am, Kernel. Hit’s all right. They aint whupped us yit, air they?’ this Jones who after the demon rode away with the regiment when the granddaughter was only eight years old would tell people that he ‘was lookin after Major’s place and niggers’ even before they had time to ask him why he was not with the troops and perhaps in time came to believe the lie himself, who was among the first to greet the demon when he returned, to meet him at the gate and say, ‘Well, Kernel, they kilt us but they aint whupped us yit, air they?’ who even worked, labored, sweat at the demon’s behest during that first furious period while the demon believed he could restore by sheer indomitable willing the Sutpen’s Hundred which he remembered and had lost, labored with no hope of pay or reward who must have seen long before the demon did (or would admit it) that the task was hopeless-blind Jones who apparently saw still in that furious lecherous wreck the old fine figure of the man who once galloped on the black thoroughbred about that domain two boundaries of which the eye could not see from any point.

h/t: [ Open Culture ]

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