But our brains are built to wrest familiar meaning from the confusions of the world, and watching the cranes at dusk I see them first turn into strings of musical notation, then mathematical patterns.
Helen McDonald Vesper Flights
This sentence feels like a big swinging movement from one aspect of polarity to the other, wresting meaning from confusion. I read philosophy, a sort of hobby of mine. Instead of labeling this as antithesis or opposites, and leaving it at that, I’m going to go a step further and invoke the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, who was intent on moving the mind away from the conventional way of thinking of polarity. The problem with the common view is that one aspect of the duality becomes superior and the other inferior. Instead, he introduced the idea of the play of differences.
I like this concept because I feel the playfulness of this sentence, the swinging between one polarity to the other, how they need each other for definition, and I can imagine this rhythm going on forever. Once meaning is carved from confusion, at some point, we’ll find ourselves back in confusion again. As I use antithesis, I’ve started thinking this way about the pairing of differences and stopping myself from viewing one as lesser.
This sentence has more playfulness to it. After the antithesis in the opening, McDonald’s sentence invokes a metaphor, as the narrator watches the cranes and the image playfully swings from a crane, becoming strings of musical notation and then mathematical patterns. What a wonderful way to proliferate imagery in a sentence!
Try it
Open the sentence with a base clause (subject/verb predicate). In McDonald’s sentence the subject is “brains” and the verb “are built.” Choose a verb that needs a direct object. A direct object receives the action of the verb.
Now add antithesis, such as good/bad, patient/impatient, light/dark, peace/war, etc.
Add a conjunction.
Before you write your second base clause, add a modifying phrase that gives more detail about the subject of the second base clause and introduces an image. Here, it’s the participial phrase, “watching the cranes at dusk.” The image will serve as Domain 1, the first part of your metaphor.
Here comes your second base clause: “I see them….”
Now add two images that function as Domain 2 to your Domain 1, which was introduced in your modifying phrase. What are the similarities between Domain 1 and 2? Where’s the common ground?
Can you help the reader’s body feel the sentence? McDonald invokes so much music:
Alliteration: but/brains/built; see/strings
Consonance: first/turn; the “s” in cranes/dusk/see/strings/musical/patterns
Hard stresses: FIRST TURN, which slows down the sentence, preparing the reader to see the transformation of cranes into these new images.
Then, the six-syllable count of “musical notation” is repeated with “mathematical patterns.”
Try it!
Let me know what else you see.
I’d love you to read my books!
Since April, I’ve written this newsletter, which I love to do. By studying sentences, I’ve seen my students’ writing and my writing become more varied, more musical, and more alive on the page. You can support me by reading my books, which are listed on my website, ninaschuyler.com.
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. In each of these classes, we spend 10 to 15 weeks drenched in the beauty of sentences, reading them and writing them. As an adjunct professor, I’ve also taught Techniques of Long Fiction, Architecture of Prose, Workshops, Characterization, Making Metaphor, Point of View, and many other classes. My new novel, Afterword, will be published in May 2023 and is available for preorder.
Your analysis of sentence structure is, well, amazing and at a level that, well, I'd be hard pressed to equal. I tend to go with more visceral patterns -- flow, pacing, word-choice, images -- in my writing. In my current project, a first novel, each 'chapter' takes the POV of a single character and I am now at the stage of trying to hone down each to the 'style' of thinking, speaking of that particular character.
You've given me a new idea for this process, which is decidedly analytical. Thank you.