Tuesday, July 21, 2020
Writing Good Closing Sentences
Writing Good Closing SentencesGood closing sentences will help you sell anything, anything but the written word. People hate reading those two-word paragraphs where you whack them with an overbearing pause that ends up in a quote from someone else's famous or polarizing work. You know how people read?They read slowly and you don't want them to read slowly and take long enough to make a difference. So avoid writing long blocks of sentences with a lot of unnecessary pauses and then add an ending sentence that screams out: Get me! The more time your readers have to process what you're trying to communicate, the better off you'll be. It's the same principle that makes a movie or commercial a good one. You give them the hook and then go away.The opening line is the hook that jumps out at them and says, Here you go. We just can't get enough of this here. So instead of using your opening as your hook, use it as the closing statement to your conclusion. Be sure to stop there, and don't ever continue on with your closing unless you've reached a point where you're happy with it.You can't keep your readers guessing about what the very next sentence is going to be. If they know that's coming, they won't be interested in what's left behind. So writing good concluding sentences is a key to making readers want to know what happens next.Another trick to writing good concluding sentences is to keep them short. Give them the information they need so they're looking for the solution. Don't write like you're on a deadline. You're not.Don't take too many paragraphs, even though you may want to do so. Remember, you're trying to build suspense and stir up interest in the reader's mind. That means you should take the liberty of putting a little story in between each paragraph. Maybe you've been talking about some internal conflict or some major change. Make it work into your opening paragraph to move the reader to the next paragraph.When you're in the final paragraph of your concludin g statement, make sure you give the reader something to think about and wonder about. If the reader doesn't find that thought provoking, they will never be interested in what comes after that paragraph. Good closing sentences should give the reader some mental space to reflect on what you've said, but also something to think about so they can go back to thinking about the idea you presented.If your ending paragraph is too long, it's OK. Just try to keep it down. You can't go on for two paragraphs. By the time you get to the final paragraph, your reader should be ready to jump into the next paragraph and start working through the whole thing, which will make your final paragraph that much more powerful.
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