Hear how the use of the wrong word wakes you from your reading spell. - Gary Provost

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 the energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals - sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

took to the business like a porpoise to the sea. Augustine Paspalakis, unfortunately, did not share Lisa’s affinity for the finer points of bookkeeping. He once told his daughter, “What I know about money is I take some in and I put in the safe. In the morning I take the money out of the safe and I put it in the bank.” Steno was a man who could add up any column of figures in his head, but start talking debits and ledgers with him and his eyes would glaze over. To him accounting meant you had to turn

Cass was her husband, and the fragile bond between them had been built not on love or romance, or even sex. It floated on, it swam in, it drowned under, alcohol. They were drinking buddies long before Cass moved in with Dee,