There is a certain place where dumbwaiters boom, doors slam, dishes crash; every window is a mother’s mouth bidding the street shut up, go skate somewhere else, come home. My voice is the loudest.
“The Loudest Voice,” by Grace Paley
Paley’s stories have an oral quality, a sense that she’s sitting there, drinking coffee, telling you a story. It gives the idea that all you need to do is jot down a story in your notebook and wham, you’re done. But appearances are deceiving because her work invokes a great deal of style. Take a moment and read her sentence out loud.
This sentence sings in my ear. There is so much sound, not only at the content level but the word level. The most significant style technique is the pattern of rhythm. In the dependent clause, she uses a string of verbs, boom, slam, crash. Look closer and you see a pattern (hard stresses are in bold): dumbwaiters boom, doors slam, dishes crash. The rhythm of the first, “dumbwaiters boom,” is echoed by “dishes crash.” The middle phrase, like the other two, emphasizes the last word of “slam.” (There’s also the consonance of the repeating “m” sound in dumb/boom/slam.) Paley uses series and asyndeton, the elimination of “and,” to press this rhythm together.
After the semicolon, she builds a new pattern that is slightly reminiscent of the previous one: “bidding the street shut up,” “go skate somewhere else,” “come home.” There’s the cluster of hard stresses. And, like the previous pattern, the final word receives heavier stress. Here, too, she uses series and asyndeton.
Let me back up. The opening part of the sentence uses an expletive construction, with “There is.” You’ve probably been told not to use them because they are stripped of energy due to the passive verb, “is.” Paley, however, uses it to build to the subject, “place,” and then she amps the energy with the three verbs that also convey sound, boom, slam, crash, and after the semicolon, she uses imperatives “shut up,” “go skate somewhere else,” and “come home.” These imperatives also convey sound because they are being yelled out the window. This sentence is anything but passive.
After the semicolon, what electrifies this sentence is the metaphor. Paley compares the window to a mother’s mouth. What flows from the window/mother’s mouth are all the commands to the neighbors and children. You can hear the profanity rumbling under the stream.
She also invokes alliteration, with doors/dishes, slam/street/shut/skate/somewhere, and mother’s/mouth.
There’s so much assonance, the repetition of vowel sounds: place/waiters/skate; slam/crash; mouth/loudest; window/bidding; shut/up/come; go/home.
Do you feel the rumble of anger? It comes from the plosives, d/b/t/k/p/g that explode from the mouth, place, dumbwaiters, boom, doors, dishes, crash, bidding, street, go, shut up, skate, come, loudest.
The second short sentence not only provides variety in terms of length, but a softer sound, creating contrast and a sense of change, with only one word containing two plosives, “loudest.”
Your Turn
Start with an expletive construction, “There is/There are; It is/It was.” Follow with a dependent clause. Here, you want to include at least three sounds in short verb phrases, as Paley does, “dumbwaiters boom, doors slam, dishes crash.” (note the series or the use of three and asyndeton) Can you create a pattern of rhythm? Alliteration? Assonance?
Add a semicolon. Use a metaphor and add three imperatives. Here, can you use series and asyndeton?
End with a short sentence.
Try it!
How did it go?
Here’s Grace Paley reading the story, “The Loudest Voice.”
About Me:
I’ve taught “Style in Fiction,” “Word for Word” and “Cultivating Your Prose” at the University of San Francisco and Stanford Continuing Studies since 2007. Painters have paint; sculptors have clay. We have words, and words are sounds, and if you pay close attention to this, you can make music.
Please visit my website to find all of my books: ninaschuyler.com, including my novel Afterword, How to Write Stunning Sentences, and Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal.
Preorder My Award-Winning Short Story Collection:
I’m so happy that my short story collection, In This Ravishing World, will be published in July 2024. The collection won the W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections and The Prism Prize for Climate Literature.
Nine connected stories unfold, bringing together an unforgettable cast of dreamers, escapists, activists, and artists, creating a kaleidoscopic view of the climate crisis. An older woman who has spent her entire life fighting for the planet sinks into despair. A young boy is determined to bring the natural world to his bleak urban reality. A scientist working to solve the plastic problem grapples with whether to have a child. A ballet dancer tries to inhabit the consciousness of a rat. It’s a full-throated chorus, with Nature joining in, marveling at the exquisite beauty of our world, and pleading, raging, and ultimately urging everyone toward activism and resistance.
I’d really appreciate it if you pre-ordered the book. Here’s the link:
Afterword!
The San Mateo County Libraries ordered 150 signed copies of Afterword to distribute free to Patrons. I’ll read and talk about Afterword for the library on January 23, 6:30 pm PST, online. Please join us! You can register here:
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Thank you!
great choice, incredible writer
omg, I read her collected stories last year and they rewired my brain