Endlessly she lifted the glass of gin and peppermint to her lips, endlessly she smiled.
“Lovers of Their Time,” William Trevor
I love repetition in a sentence because it rivets my attention to the repeated word, and then meaning and associations proliferate.
“Endlessly:” being or seeming to be without end. A hyperbolic adverb, for sure, and the repetition creates heightened emotion. It could be frustration or a dreamy fantasy looping in a character’s mind. (in this story, it’s the latter).
This type of repetition is called anaphora, repeating word(s) at the beginning of phrases, clauses, or sentences. “It’s the king of rhetorical figures,” writes Mark Forsyth in The Elements of Eloquence. It’s easy to use, he adds, it’s easy like a gun. “Very useful, but you need to point it the right way before pulling the trigger.” Which is another way of saying, choose the right word to repeat since you are drawing attention to it.
The outcast adverb with its black eye. Whenever I teach, invariably, a student says she’s been told never to use adverbs. Trevor shows how they can shimmer and shine. Go ahead, use an adverb.
Music rings in this sentence through the use of assonance, lifted/gin/lips and endlessly/peppermint. And consonance--the repetition of consonant sounds--with the “p” of peppermint and lips.
What’s particularly striking to my ear is the pattern of rhythm. There’s the three-syllable word, “ENdlessly,” (the heavy stress capitalized), which is followed by “PEppermint.”
Your Turn
This is a compound sentence with two independent clauses connected not by conjunction or semicolon but by a comma. Here I am again, giving you permission to write a comma splice.
Write your first independent clause.
Add an adverb to the beginning of this sentence.
Add a comma and repeat the adverb.
Now add your second independent clause. To vary the rhythm, make this clause short.
Can you add assonance? Consonance? A pattern of stresses?
*human made
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. It’s such a pleasure! I’ve watched my writing and my students’ writing blossom with this practice of paying close attention to the sentence.
Please visit my website to find all of my books, www.ninaschuyler.com. You’ll find my book, How to Write Stunning Sentences, and my new book, Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal.
I’d really love it if you preordered my novel, Afterword, which will be published in May 2023. Publishers Weekly said:
“Schuyler makes palpable the love between Haru and Virginia, which informs Virginia’s conflicted desire to keep his memory alive and leads to many clever insights (“The definition of human should include the word ‘flaw’ in it”). This will move readers.
Preorder links:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/afterword-nina-schuyler/18618162?ean=9781955904704
https://smile.amazon.com/Afterword-Nina-Schuyler/dp/1955904707/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3TZ5QIYJ90EYM&keywords=afterword+nina&qid=1673155946&sprefix=afterword+nina%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-1
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Beauty in Small Spaces
I like how this sentence is dynamic and static at once!