Emphasising emotion with fragments

On the next couple of pages, we're going to look at a few different snippets where the writers have put different sentence types together to create particular effects.

On the last page, we saw an example of a punchy fragment being used after an exclamation. Here's another example of fragments being used for emotional impact.

I was still burning about Colonel Finley. The helicopter he was meant to send. The helicopter he'd promised us. The way he more or less abandoned us after his Kiwi troops went missing.

Burning for Revenge(1993)

Writers often use fragments for emphasis and impact. Here the fragments slow you down, and use simplicity and repetition to emphasise the narrator's emotion (in this case, anger).

Let's try it for ourselves.

I was still nervous about summer camp. The freaky wooden pier. The icy cold lake. Getting pushed off the freaky wooden pier into the icy cold lake by Jason and his tribe.

It was the best day of my life. Fireworks in the sky. Icecream in our mouths. Everyone in celebration mode.

Write your own variation.

Four and a half types of sentence

Emphasising emotion with fragments