a screenshot of a Gary Provost quote that reads:
"This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It's like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.
Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbalsโsounds that say listen to this, it is important.
So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader's ear. Don't just write words. Write music."
the first paragraph with 5-word sentences is highlighted in red. In the next paragraphs, short sentences are yellow, medium sentences are purple, long sentences are green, and the really long crescendo sentence is blue. This reinforces the feeling you get while reading the paragraphs.
I've been thinking about level design lately, and this well-known writing advice by Gary Provost popped up in my feed. I've read it before, but this time I thought, "you could say this about level design, too".