---
name: prose-craft
description: "Reviews and teaches prose technique: sound and rhythm, sentence variety, punctuation, repetition, adjectives and adverbs, word economy, crowding and leaping. Use this skill whenever the user asks about prose style, sentence rhythm, sentence length, punctuation choices, grammar for writers, repetition in prose, adjective and adverb usage, word economy, crowding, leaping, prose polish, 'how does my writing sound', 'my prose feels flat/clunky/wordy', or any question about the craft of writing at the sentence and paragraph level. Also use when reviewing a passage for prose quality or when a writer wants to improve their style."
---

# Prose Craft

The sound of language is where it all begins. A good writer has a mind's ear — they hear their prose as they write it. The common critical terms for weak prose (dull, choppy, droning, jerky, feeble) are all faults of sound. The chief duty of a narrative sentence is to lead to the next sentence, and it does this through pace, movement, and rhythm.

This skill covers prose at the sentence and paragraph level: the physical material of writing.

## Core Principles

### 1. Sound and Rhythm
Prose has musical properties. Not meter (that turns prose into poetry), but rhythm — the irregular, varying cadence created by sentence length, word choice, stress patterns, and silence. Train the mind's ear. Read prose aloud. If it sounds wrong, it is wrong, regardless of whether you can name the problem.

The elements of sound:
- **Onomatopoeia** — words that sound like what they mean
- **Alliteration** — repetition of initial sounds
- **Cadence** — the rise and fall of sentence rhythm
- **Silence** — what is left out; the white space around the word

### 2. Sentence Length and Variety
There is no optimum sentence length. The optimum is **variety**. Rhythm in prose depends on the contrast between sentences of different lengths. A passage of all short sentences is choppy and monotonous. A passage of all long sentences is exhausting. The interplay is what creates music.

Short sentences are highly effective in the right place. Complex sentences need clear construction so they carry the reader rather than losing them. A sentence so grand it stops the story is not working as a narrative sentence.

Common problems:
- **Conjunctivitis** — stringing short sentences together with "and" and "but", creating childish droning
- **Misplacement** — sentence parts in the wrong order, creating ambiguity
- **Danglers** — modifying phrases attached to the wrong noun

### 3. Punctuation
Punctuation tells the reader how to hear the writing. It makes grammatical structure clear and shows where the pauses and breaks come. Writers must be competent themselves — grammar-correcting software is dangerously incompetent.

Know real rules from fake ones:
- **Fake rule**: Never begin a sentence with "There is" (it's a legitimate existential construction)
- **Fake rule**: Never use the passive voice (the passive is one of the lovely versatilities of the verb — guard against it only when it obscures agency)
- **Real rule**: Know what you are doing with your language and why

### 4. Repetition
Deliberate repetition is one of the great powers of prose. Accidental repetition is clumsy. Learn to distinguish them.

Repetition can be:
- **Incantatory** — building rhythm and emotional weight
- **Structural** — events echoing events across the novel
- **Comic** — a recurring phrase gathering weight with each appearance
- **Hammering** — a word repeated like a blow for emphasis

The journalistic rule against using the same word twice on a page drives writers to the thesaurus for far-fetched synonyms that stick out like flamingos in a flock of pigeons. Reject it.

### 5. Adjectives and Adverbs
Rich, good, and nourishing — they cause obesity only when used lazily or overused. The key principle: when the quality can be put directly in the verb or noun, the prose will be stronger.

- *They ran quickly* → *They raced*
- *A growling voice* → *A growl*
- *She said loudly* → *She shouted*

Watch for:
- **Qualifiers** (rather, a little, just, very, kind of, sort of) — bloodsuckers in prose
- **Empty intensifiers** — "great", "suddenly", "somehow" — meaningless through overuse
- **Hedging adverbs** — weakening statements the writer should commit to

### 6. Crowding and Leaping
**Crowding**: loading every rift with ore. Vivid, exact, concrete, accurate, dense, rich. Keep the story full of what's happening, moving, interconnected.

**Leaping**: what you leave out. What you leave out is infinitely more than what you leave in. There must be white space around the word, silence around the voice. Listing is not describing. Only the relevant belongs.

Crowd in the first draft. Then cut. Decide what counts, what tells, and cut and recombine until what's left is what counts.

## Prose Review Checklist

When reviewing a passage for prose quality:

- [ ] Read it aloud (or with the mind's ear). Does it sound right?
- [ ] Is there sentence length variety? Or monotonous uniformity?
- [ ] Are long sentences clearly constructed and easy to follow?
- [ ] Is punctuation doing its job — clarifying, not cluttering?
- [ ] Is repetition deliberate and effective, or accidental and clumsy?
- [ ] Can any adjective be absorbed into a stronger noun? Any adverb into a stronger verb?
- [ ] Are there qualifier ticks (just, very, kind of, sort of, rather)?
- [ ] Does every sensory detail serve the story — or is some of it travelogue?
- [ ] Is the passage crowded enough (vivid, dense, moving)?
- [ ] Has enough been leaped over (no listing, no unnecessary explanation)?
- [ ] Does each sentence lead to the next?

## When to Read Reference Files

- **For sound, rhythm, and sentence variety** — read `references/sound-and-rhythm.md`
- **For adjectives, adverbs, and word economy** — read `references/word-economy.md`
- **For punctuation and grammar guidance** — read `references/punctuation-and-grammar.md`
- **For the craft of deliberate repetition** — read `references/repetition.md`

## Exercises to Offer Writers

1. **Being Gorgeous** — Write a paragraph of narrative meant to be read aloud: use onomatopoeia, alliteration, repetition, rhythmic effects. Show off. Use the whole orchestra.
2. **Am I Saramago** — Write 150-350 words of narrative with no punctuation and no paragraphing (a hectic group activity). Discover what punctuation does by forbidding it.
3. **Short and Long** — Part 1: Write 100-150 words in sentences of seven words or fewer, each with subject and verb. Part 2: Write up to 350 words that is all one sentence.
4. **Chastity** — Write 200-350 words of descriptive narrative with no adjectives or adverbs. Only verbs, nouns, pronouns, and articles. The most enlightening exercise there is.
5. **A Terrible Thing to Do** — Take a piece over 400 words and cut it by half. Not trimming — counting words and reducing to half. Discover which words are Styrofoam and which are heavy gold.
