Em Dash It

"The Fireman" by Rick Bass from the collection The Hermit's Story

But after a fire—holding a can of cold beer, and sitting there next to the hearth, scrubbed clean, talking to Mary Ann, telling her what it had been like, what the cause had been, and who among his men had performed well and who had not-–his eyes water with pleasure at knowing how lucky he is to be getting a second chance with each and every fire.

“The Fireman,” by Rick Bass, from the collection, The Hermit’s Story

Photo by Jay Heike on Unsplash

Kirby’s marriage is crumbling, and his day job as a computer programmer leaves him lifeless, but his volunteer firefighting job breathes life into him and his marriage.

The phrase ‘But after a fire’ locates us temporally. Something has already happened, and there are consequences. These four words create energy by generating the question—what happens after a fire? The word ‘but’ always signals a turn in a sentence. Prior to this sentence, Kirby has finished for the day his dull job, so the ‘but’ is in contrast to his daily life.

Bass uses a left-branching sentence, placing all the modifying information to the left of the base clause, which comes at the end: “his eyes water with pleasure at knowing how lucky he is to be getting a second chance with each and every fire.” This type of sentence creates great suspense and, consequently, propulsion; the reader keeps reading to discover the subject of the sentence and who is doing the action.

Because of the syntactical design, we first encounter the concrete details of what Kirby and his wife do after he fights a fire. The small indefinite article ‘a’ fire means this is habitual action: after every fire, they sit together and Kirby tells her what happened. At the end, with the base clause, the sentence dips into Kirby’s interior.

After the opening phrase, “But after a fire,” Bass could have used a comma, but because there are so many modifiers, the em dash makes the sentence easier to read and highlights all that happens when he returns home from fighting a fire. Using an em dash emphasizes what is contained within the em dash frame. It sets this aspect of the sentence apart from the whole. The focus becomes how firefighting leads to a time when he can sit with his wife and hold her attention by telling her what happened. Moreover, the many modifiers create a feeling that Kirby and Mary Ann sit for a long time.

The modifiers are primarily four verbs turned into adjectives –ing (called present participials), ‘holding,’ ‘sitting,’ talking,’ ‘telling.’ A lovely repetition and rhythm is created by the string of –ing words that continue into the base clause with ‘knowing’ and ‘getting.’ The verb-turned-adjective also injects energy into the sentence.

The modifiers refer to the base clause or Kirby, who is implicitly represented by the subject ‘his eyes.’ Bass breaks the rhythm of the –ing by including subordinate phrases that refer to the previous phrase rather than the base clause. For instance, ‘scrubbed clean,’ modifies the ‘hearth.’

1. holding a can of cold beer

2. sitting there next to the hearth

a. scrubbed clean

3. talking to Mary Ann

4. telling her what it had been like

a. what the cause had been

b. who among his men had performed well

c. who had not

When you use a left-branching sentence and delay the base clause as long as Bass does, the finale should be climactic (or at least not anticlimactic). And it is; Kirby is alive and enlivened, his eyes watering with pleasure because he gets a second chance, not only with his marriage but his life.

Rick Bass, photo by Jessica Lowry

Your Turn

Open with a short phrase that establishes that something has happened.

Add an em dash.

Include four –ing words that all refer to the base clause. Add subordinate phrases that refer to a specific –ing word. Conclude with another em dash.

End with the base clause.

Try it!

How did it go?

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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. Please visit my website for all my books: ninaschuyler.com, including my novel Afterword, How to Write Stunning Sentences, and Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal.

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