A complex sentence is a sentence that contains an independent clause and at least one dependent clause. This sentence-imitation exercise will give you practice in connecting independent clauses with dependent clauses using subordinating conjunctions.
Instructions
Use each of the ten complex sentences below as the model for a new sentence of your own.
Example:
Original sentence: Whenever I look at a mountain, I expect it to turn into a volcano.
Imitation: Whenever I bite into an apple, I expect a worm to crawl out any minute.
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- The air whistled around me as I ran down the dark street.
- The dog hid in the bedroom and whimpered while Chris played his violin.
- When I was a child, I would place the covers over my head before I went to sleep.
- One hot summer evening, my sister and I watched in awe as bolts of lightning from a distant storm lit up the sky.
- "It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing."
(Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid, 2007) - "When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth."
(Kurt Vonnegut) - "As she walked down the stairs into the club, she was looking forward to a seething, teeming, wriggling, wiggling throng of dancers."
(Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked, 2009) - "There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look."
(Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle, 1963) - "As Pecola put the laundry bag in the wagon, we could hear Mrs. Breedlove hushing and soothing the tears of the little pink-and-yellow girl."
(Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, 1970) - "Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them you find more than you ever dreamed you'd see."
(Lemony Snicket, The Lump of Coal, 2008)
