ClearTips: Stunning sentences

Questions answered

Many writers open a paragraph with a question and keep the reader musing about possible answers through to the end. Fine, if that's the desired effect. More potent, however, is the immediate answer, especially with a fragment.

Does all this seem overdone? Well, yes.

Compare this with the common All this seems overdone.

But which countries should represent these regions. India? Pakistan says no. Brazil? Argentina says no. Nigeria? Everybody says no.

So how much can a novelist get away with? It entirely depends upon whether or not he can sustain our interest by sheer force of persuasive imaginative skill.

. . . Japan's financial system has not always been dominated by banks. Before the second world war, stock and bond markets were thriving. In the early 1930s, half of companies' capital came from issuing shares. Were these markets killed by accident or design?
Probably a bit of both. . . .

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