A 1A treatment

For those of you who might have missed Sunday's 1A treatment of Melissa Burke's story, "Inside, wanting out," make sure you check it out.

For starters, we began this passage with a sentence 23 words long. As the passage continues, the sentences become shorter and shorter until there is a one-word sentence followed by a four-word sentence.

This was on purpose. Our intent was to have the reader feel as though their world, too, was getting smaller and smaller through using shorter and shorter sentences, ending with the one-word sentence "Alone." Notice, too, that this single-word sentence is followed by a four-word one indicating hope and change.

We also achieved this feeling by design. Notice how the sentences, while descending in word length, are laid out in such a way that they create an arrow of sorts, pointing to the word "alone." Below is the passage written without the typographical treatment to show you how each sentence was written with fewer words than the one before.

We also were very cognizant of the rhythm in this passage, and I think the end result was amazing!

So, if you haven't seen this, please check it out.


For nearly five years, Melissa Straub didn't go a mile beyond her tidy, cocoa-brown home in the suburban hills of North Codorus Township.
Gripped by panic attacks, she'd stopped working and traveling, grocery shopping and driving by herself.
She avoided appointments, dropped out of the Bible study down her block.
Her world got smaller, the attacks more terrifying.
Family and friends were bewildered.
They came, they went.
And she stayed.
At home.
Alone.
Hoping for a way out.