To be an effective author, you need to be able to form clear, correct and varied sentences.

Correct Sentences

• The most basic sentence, and the smallest grouping of words which qualify as a sentence, is a combination of a subject and a verb to make a statement. For example, "I ran." If a subject and a verb with a tense are not present, it is not a sentence, but a fragment.
• Some verbs also have to be used with an object or again only a fragment is formed. For example you cannot say, "I hit" on its own, as it sounds incomplete without adding what you hit: "I hit the ball."
• Fragments should generally not be used except in dialog or a character's thoughts, for example to express surprise, like a character who can only say, "I can't..." because something horrible has happened. Be careful, and use fragments sparingly, so they retain their force. Because they are out of the ordinary, they will attract the reader's attention to important points in your story.

Varied Sentences

A very good way to bore a reader is to tell your story with simple sentences alone. The old childrens book See Spot Run went a little bit like this:

"See Spot run. Spot runs well. He runs to the fire hydrant. See Spot stop. See Spot..." I'm betting you can fill in the rest.

While informative, this text is not very interesting to read. To spice things up a bit, you need complex sentences. One of the easiest ways to make a complex sentence is to use a relative pronoun to form a subordinate (or dependent) clause. A clause is incomplete on its own even though it contains a verb (you will see why in the following examples) but gives additional information about the subject.

The most common relative pronouns in English are "that", "which" and "who". Take for instance these two sentences: "I bought a ship." "I flew in it to Eos." Using the relative pronoun "that" or "which" we can make a single, shorter, more interesting sentence like this: "I bought a ship, in which I flew to Eos." That can also be expressed like this: "I bought a ship that I flew in to Eos." Take note of three things:

1. once you have put in the relative pronoun to form the subordinate clause it is not complete on its own - "That I flew in to Eos" is incomplete.
2. the preposition used in the original sentence must be used in the subordinate clause (in this case "in");
3. the use of "which" always requires a comma, whereas the use of "that" does not.

"Because", "since", "and", "but", "if", "when", "after" etc. can be used as conjunctions (joining words) to connect two complete sentences together. For instance, the two sentences, "I eat fish." and "I think they taste good." can be combined as follows, "I eat fish because I think they taste good."

Contrary to popular myth, sentences MAY begin with "because." For example, "Because I want to go back to school early, I am willing to pay for an earlier flight." However, you must be careful that you do not, in the process of using a conjunction to start a sentence, accidentally let a dependent clause stand alone and fail to complete the sentence, thus leaving it as a fragment.

You should note that "because," and "since" can mean the same thing, and then you may use each of them as you choose. "Because," (sometimes in speech found as " 'cause" with the apostrophe to show letters have been missed out) is slightly less formal. "Since" is also used in the time sense, "I have been in the Emperor's Hammer since I met Gidda on IRC and he recruited me," so it is not totally interchangeable with "because". Many words in English can be used in several ways, so be careful to use each word and its synonyms (same meaning) and homonyms (similar spelling and pronunciation) correctly.

A final tip - if you are having difficulty getting your complex sentences correct, break them down. You should start by removing any subordinate clauses (usually separated by a comma) and then look at your basic sentence (the main subject and verb). When those are correct, it will be easier to fix your subordinate clause and insert it for a finished and perfect sentence.