He had folded up the story and put it in the pocket of his jeans for one year and one half straight because they were the only pants he had and the paper had turned from print into lint and then into the pocket itself and then the jeans had become as thin and as grey as the egg skins his momma had put over his boils when he was little.
“Dimmer,” by Joy Williams
So much is unfolding in this stunning sentence! Williams beautifully depicts the passage of time with the slow disintegration of the paper in his pocket and the similar decomposition of his jeans. From print to lint to absorption into the cloth pocket. The jeans, thin and thinner, as grey as the egg skins his mamma had put over his boils when he was little. A forward motion as things dissolve, and then, surprisingly, a backward motion, back to when he was a little boy.
The paper in the boy’s pocket is his mother’s obituary, so there is an additional layer of meaning—the need for momma to be close, touching him, somehow—and that of death, the ultimate disintegration.
Williams’ sentence is an example of syntactic symbolism, mimicking the passage of time. The sentence is long, taking up acreage on the page, suggesting time is passing. It’s a compound-complex sentence, with the first two independent clauses describing the newspaper article and its demise, and the third independent clause devoted to the jeans which leads associatively to the egg skins.
The first independent clause uses a compound verb, “folded… put,” and includes a dependent clause (beginning with the subordinate conjunction “because”) that elaborates upon why he kept the article in his pocket.
1. He had folded up the story and put it in the pocket of his jeans for one year and one half straight because they were the only pants he had (and)
The second independent clause uses imagery and precise diction to transform the paper over time:
2. The paper had turned from print into lint and then into the pocket itself (and then)
The third independent clause turns to the jeans and, using an “as + adjective and as +adjective…as” construction, compares the disintegrating pants to egg skins. It’s here that the sentence makes its surprising turn in the other direction, with the dependent clause “when he was little,” taking us into the past:
3. The jeans had become as thin and as gray as the egg skins his momma had put over his boils when he was little.
Williams deftly uses diction in the first independent clause to indicate a young protagonist who would describe time as “for one year and one half straight.” In the third independent clause, his mother is “momma.”
I hear the ringing of the short “i” throughout: it/in/his/print/lint/itself/thin/skins/little.
And the alliteration with the plosive “p”: put/pocket/pants/paper/print.
I’ve begun to more attention to vowel sounds. As noted with the assonance, there are a lot of short vowels, the short “i” sound. That makes the long vowel sounds even more pronounced because they are rare: “folded,” “jeans,” “straight,” “paper,” “grey,” “boils.”
Your Turn:
1. Open with a right-branching sentence, with the subject and verb at the beginning. Include an object that will change over time. Can you include language that indicates the age of the protagonist?
2. Write your second independent clause that describes how the object in the first sentence changes over time.
3. Now include a third independent clause that uses the “as + adjective(s) +as” construction to compare either your original object or a new object to something in the past.
4. Can you add assonance? Alliteration?
Tell me how it goes!
What else do you see? Hear?
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. 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: ninaschuyler.com (including “How to Write Stunning Sentences” and “Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal).
My New Novel:
Afterword is available now! If your book club chooses my book to read, I can Zoom in and talk to the group. I’ve met with many book clubs, and it’s really fun! If you’ve read my novel please consider posting a review on Amazon or Goodreads or social media.
Thank you!
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Afterword Reviewed
I’m thrilled that The Mercury News interviewed me and also gave Afterword a wonderful review! It’s behind a paywall, but here is the opening:
Nina Schuyler never intended to become a prognosticator.
But the San Anselmo author somewhat assumes that role with her riveting “Afterword,” a prescient yet eloquent third novel that’s as topical as tomorrow’s headlines. The literary page-turner prophetically taps into ethical and moral quandaries surging to the fore over the deployment and potential abuse of artificial intelligence.
“It wasn’t planned in any way,” Schuyler said of the timeliness of her novel. “It was passion and curiosity that got me interested in this area … I didn’t set out to write science fiction.”
Upcoming Class:
I’m excited to teach a class for Zyzzyva on November 4th, 11:00-2:00 PST, on Zoom, “The Past is Always Happening: On Writing about Time.”
Time is a container for every story. Yet too often we focus intently on the event that upended the ordinary world, minimizing or ignoring the past. Writing advice often reinforces this, sometimes turning it into a rule. If this theory of time turns rigid, your story may be stripped of complicated motivations and depth. Characters are, after all, amalgamations of all that has happened to them, all that has been inherited, including the familial, cultural, and historical. Moreover, the past can be as dynamic, lively, and intense as the present. In this class, we’ll look at excerpts from short stories and novels that welcome the past. We’ll consider pieces that dedicate entire sections to the past as well as stories that let the past sprinkle in like breadcrumbs. We’ll examine the effect of these approaches on character and story. Generative writing exercises will let you explore different strategies to usher in the past, improving your understanding of time in narration.
To register:
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Love the imagery of the paper disintegrating into the jeans pocket, and holding his mother with him in this way. Thanks again for an intriguing prompt to try - it’s a much longer sentence than I would usually write, but the forward energy in a sentence like this is interesting. Here’s mine:
She had poured a cup of coffee and added a touch of sweetener because she still couldn’t drink it black as her mother said she someday would and the coffee had cooled from steaming to lukewarm and then to icy and the mug felt as heavy and as cold as the smooth stones her father had taught her to skip across the pond.
I love the second half of this sentence, but I found the opening clunky. Was it intentional? I'm in the midst of editing my novel so I do this all the time, edit things I'm reading. If this was my sentence I would have changed the opening to this: He folded the story and put it in the pocket of his jeans for a year and a half straight . But the idea that this was his mom's obituary and that slow slide into disintegration is so poignant.