Separated at Birth

Writers turn journalism to Jello by separating the subject of a sentence from its verb. The preceding sentence models better structure. The subject "writers" is followed by its verb "turn". (Jello is capitalized because it is a registered trademark, but I'm not going to attempt to get THAT little gizzie into this text!) New writers, with a little help from a pencil or pen, can find problem sentences, like this one, by marking the subject and verb and seeing how many words intervene. Keeping the constructs close doesn't condemn you to the dreaded "Dick and Jane" syndrome. It actually helps readers by clearing the brain's short-term memory cache, so it can fill up with the next jumble of words until they become a clear, understandable phrase, elaborating your sentence. Varying the sentences' lengths avoids monotony. See?

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