When you read your draft and it sounds a bit flat, you might need to vary your sentence beginnings to make your writing more interesting and lively.
While you can choose from many different phrases and clauses to do this, you don’t need to memorize dozens of sentence starters.
Most sentences naturally begin with a subject followed by a verb, with descriptive words and phrases added later.
But often, all you need to do is change the order of a few words. Move a descriptive phrase to the beginning of a sentence before the subject, and you can instantly create more variety, interest, and even curiosity.
Reordering parts of a sentence
It’s much easier than you might imagine to vary your sentence beginnings.
Here are a couple of quick examples to show you how to change a sentence to create more variety.
Before: The editor opened the manuscript and immediately noticed several glaring errors.
After: After opening the manuscript, the editor immediately noticed several glaring errors.
Before: The mountain climbers rushed back to shelter when a storm suddenly arrived.
After: When a storm suddenly arrived, the mountain climbers rushed back to shelter.
When you learn to identify the descriptive phrase or additional information part of a sentence, it’s then quick and easy to move it to the beginning of the sentence.
While my examples above are straightforward, sometimes you might need to do a little more work with the word order to keep the logic of a sentence.
Most of the time, however, you can use common sentence structures, phrases, or clauses to do the work for you.
The good news is that most of these are easy to identify and remember.
Easy ways to vary sentence beginnings
Instead of trying to remember the names of grammatical structures, it’s easier to think about the effect you want to create.
Here are a few simple ways to add variety to your writing that are easy to remember.
Add time or place: This helps readers understand when or where something happens.
After the meeting ended, In the distance, or At the stroke of midnight.
Add a condition or contrast: This introduces a different viewpoint or sets up a change in direction.
Although the story was complete, Despite the rain, or However difficult it was.
Add an action or description: This creates movement before introducing the main subject of the sentence.
Smiling to herself, Looking through the manuscript, or Hovering above them.
Add emphasis: Place the most important idea first to draw attention to it.
Most importantly, Above all, or Rather surprisingly.
Set the scene: Establish the atmosphere before introducing the action. This is particularly useful for fiction writers.
On a cold winter morning, Without warning, or Beneath the old oak tree on the edge of town.
You certainly don’t need to use these techniques in every sentence or paragraph.
However, by introducing a little variety occasionally, you can make your writing much more enjoyable to read.
The grammar names (if you’re curious)
If you like to expand your grammar understanding, the examples above can be identified by their grammatical terms.
Prepositional phrases: These begin with a preposition to establish time, place, or direction.
In the garden, After the meeting, or Under the old bridge.
Participial phrases: These describe an action or state before introducing the main subject.
Smiling quietly, Running down the hill, or Exhausted after the journey.
Adverbial openings: These modify the whole sentence by adding emphasis, timing, or attitude.
Fortunately, Suddenly, Surprisingly, or Eventually.
Dependent clauses: These set up a condition, reason, or contrast before the main clause.
Although it was raining, Because she was tired, or If you look closely.
If you like grammar terms, that’s fine. But I prefer to remember what a phrase “can do” for a sentence, such as add emphasis, describe an action, or set a time or place.
The simple technique to remember and use
The examples I’ve shared with you give you easy ways to vary your sentences.
But the real skill is in identifying the parts of a sentence you can move.
Not every sentence can be changed, so you need to be able to quickly identify candidates for a change of order.
If a lot of your sentences start with the same subject-and-verb pattern, especially longer ones, these are ideal candidates to change.
When you find one, look for the extra information that explains when, where, how, why, or under what conditions something happens, and move it.
For example:
Before: The writer checked the final draft carefully before submitting it.
The phrase before submitting it gives extra information about when the action happened.
After: Before submitting it, the writer checked the final draft carefully.
Or:
Before: The author continued writing despite the many distractions around her.
The phrase despite the many distractions around her creates contrast.
After: Despite the many distractions around her, the author continued writing.
Or:
Before: The editor smiled as she read the improved manuscript.
The phrase as she read the improved manuscript describes an action happening at the same time.
After: Reading the improved manuscript, the editor smiled.
The trick is not to rewrite every sentence. Simply look for useful phrases that you can move naturally to the beginning and create a stronger, more interesting opening.
Good writing is not about making every sentence different.
If you use too much variation, it can make your writing feel artificial or distracting.
Your aim is simply to avoid a repetitive rhythm and give your readers a more natural sentence flow.
Adding a little missing context
Sometimes a sentence simply doesn’t contain anything you can move to the beginning.
In that case, you can often improve it by adding a short descriptive opening.
For example:
Before: John rushed off to the office.
After: Realizing he had an important early meeting, John rushed off to the office.
Or:
Before: Sarah opened the email.
After: Curious about the unusual subject line, Sarah opened the email.
By adding an opening, you can give readers a little more context before the main action begins, making the sentence more informative without changing its basic meaning.
Summary
You might have thought you needed expert grammar knowledge to vary your sentence beginnings with very specific clauses or phrases.
However, that’s not the case at all. As long as you can identify what a later phrase in a sentence does, you can move it to the start of the sentence.
Try it with one of your latest drafts to see how easy it is to identify and move parts of a sentence to the beginning.
With a little practice, it will probably become one of your new and instinctive writing habits.
One of the benefits of this technique is that it can help you with show and tell.
You can SHOW your reader something interesting before you TELL them what the subject did.
Related Reading: How To Start A Sentence: 25 Sentence Starters And Examples
English teacher, writer, and author. Passionate about grammar, creative writing, and self-publishing. Always exploring new tools and tech to help writers succeed.
