A Time to Draft and a Time to Craft: Twelve Templates to Turn a Timeless Sentence

by Ramy Tadros

Have you ever wondered how to create clear simple sentences, detailed multi-clause sentences, or ornate left-, mid-, and right-branching sentences?

As any wordsmith knows, sentences form the foundation for writing success. This two-part book, containing hundreds of illustrative quotations and fun exercises, reveals how to draft and craft any sentence, whether plain and lucid or thrilling and forceful.

On the first part of the journey, writing pilgrims are introduced to the fundamentals: Twelve Templates to Turn a Timeless Sentence. The second part then builds on this bedrock, showing How to Fashion Exquisitely Styled Sentences.

After finishing this journey, students, professionals, and writers of every skill and status will have enhanced their sentential potential, while mastering the art of stringing words together to produce sophisticated sentences – linguistic structures standing the tests of time and taste.

362 pages, Paperback

First published August 11, 2015

Reviews

[Venky Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a review of A Time to Draft and a Time to Craft—Twelve Templates to Turn a Timeless Sentence by Ramy Tadros. I received this book free of cost from Story Cartel to read and review, but other than that, I do not have any other arrangement with the author, the publisher or any other entity associated with the book.
This work actually consists of two books: A time to Draft and a Time to Craft (Book 1) and Create, Narrate, Punctuate—How to Fashion Exquisitely Styled Sentences (Book 2). My review does not cover Book 2, which I have separately reviewed on an earlier occasion (and which, incidentally is the only book to which I have ever given five stars).
A Time to Draft and a Time to Craft gives the reader twelve sentence templates that form formidable weapons in any writer’s armory. I have been using some, not all, of these templates ever since I can remember, but not with any consistency. Nor did I use any of these templates deliberately, knowing what I was doing. It was just ingrained writing habit, a carryover from school and years of reading. I used subjects, predicates, clauses and phrases without conscious thought or realization of the myriad ways a writer can use them to achieve a higher quality of output. This book gave me clarify of thought, taught me to recognize what I have been doing so far and to realize there are many more ways of manipulating words that I could use profitably.
Manipulate—that is what this book teaches the writer to do. Manipulate phrases and clauses, subjects and predicates, conjunctions and prepositions, to create outstanding sentences. The book does this painstakingly, with tons of examples, quotations and a thorough breakdown of each of the twelve templates. And exercises at the end of each chapter, to help readers retain what they have just read.
I have no hesitation in rating this book “must read” for aspiring writers. I have read it, I have reviewed it and I will be going back to it every now and then, to review what I have read.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you might have guessed from my acquiring and finishing the 361 page book on the same afternoon, I did not completely read this book today, but, I did read much of it and skimmed the rest. I have always loved English, grammar and writing and when I saw the title on Story Cartel, I thought it would be fun to read. I thought it was a book on writing, but it is not. It is written for people who want to improve their writing - their individual sentences and for those whose education in that area was lacking, it could be a help.

My difficulty with it was that it was written in a way that those who didn't have a very good grasp of the language in the first place might have a difficult time comprehending what it was saying. I believe the author's intent is in the right place, though. Once you got to the actual sentence building sections, there is good information if it is used as a page-by-page workbook.

The copy I have is a PDF, which might be part of my frustration, but there was no solid index where one could look up a problem you were having and find a solution. I have owned and used many grammar and composition handbooks since the early 1960's and I know that a thorough index was always most helpful.

The exercises could help you learn how to form many kinds of sentences, and there is a key/list of answers that followed each exercise section.

My main concern is the language used in the writing of the book. It is quite formal, reminding me of my first "adult" book I was allowed to read when I was 10. That was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, which I read with a dictionary by my side the entire time.

I believe that we do need to comprehend many eras of our language, but when it comes to writing clear sentences today, we need to take the less complex language that has been forced on the later generations, especially at the beginning of this kind of book, and build on it. I kept reading because of the commitment I had made, not because the information's presentation was such that I wanted to keep reading.

If you can acquire this at a reasonable price, it might be very helpful, but paying the cover price for something that seemed to be pulled from Project Gutenberg seems a bit much. I do not want to discourage anyone from trying it if it would be a help to them. This might be just what you need. I would caution you, though, that you might need to look up words to understand what is being said. That said, I do think that reading and using a dictionary at the same time is a most educational help for anyone. I will keep my copy, and because I love to play with words, I most likely will do some of the exercises.