June 4. Punch line!

The way you end a sentence or a paragraph is important. When reading aloud, don’t lower your voice on approaching the end of a thought. When writing, don’t end a sentence weakly: end on a note of power. When lecturing, end with a downbeat! End with a “punch line.” In classical drama, the climax at the end of a play was followed by a brief anticlimax. Good! The anticlimax gave audiences time to relax and absorb what they had experienced. Building toward that climax, however, required a gradual increase of tension, not an increase of anticlimaxes.

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