Gaston was not only a fierce lover, with endless wisdom and imagination, but he was also, perhaps, the first man in the history of the species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simply to make love in a field of violets.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
In one sentence, Marquez breathes life into Gaston: he’s a fierce lover, charming, and bigger than life. And he’s funny. Writers often ask me: how do I write humor? (I think under that question hums: given these heart-wrenching times, it’s the least I can do.)
One answer is to point them to Marquez’s sentence. Every time I read it, I laugh. It’s loaded with hyperbole, which is one style technique to create humor. Gaston not only has wisdom and imagination, but “endless” amounts of them. He isn’t only the first man in history, but “in the history of the species.”
Marquez uses a correlative conjunction, not only/but also, to set up a jarring, surprising contrast. Gaston made an emergency landing, almost killing himself and his sweetheart so that they could make love in a field. It’s akin to a punchline of a joke; risking death--here comes the punchline--so there can be lovemaking. The antithesis, or contrast—death and love—is a surprise, and, walking that fine line between laughter and terror, surprise unleashes laughter.
The imagery, too, adds humor. Garcia could have ended the sentence with, “to make love.” But he adds the final sensory detail, “in a field of violets,” so the reader can fully inhabit the world. It wasn’t any old place where he wanted to make love, but a field of violets.
Irony, too, invites humor; irony, the contrast between what on the surface appears to be the case and what’s actually the case. We’re told that Gaston has endless wisdom, but by the end of the sentence, his endless wisdom is upended.
Your Turn
Open with a right-branching sentence, with your subject and verb at the beginning. To keep it simple (remember, we’re practicing) use the verb “was,” which is a linking verb, connecting the subject with description.
Now use the correlative conjunction—not only/but also--and add at least three adjectives to describe your subject.
Use hyperbole to make the subject extreme, bigger than life.
Can you invoke antithesis? Try thinking about polarities like Marquez did with death and life. Or try thinking about the usual or expected thing, then do the opposite.
One more thing: can you find a way to add irony?
Try it!
Let me know how it goes!
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: ninaschuyler.com
You’ll find my book, How to Write Stunning Sentences, and my new book, Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal.
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Mary was not only flawless in the kitchen, a Martha Stewart in the making, but pious and God-fearing with all the humility of a nun, risking the integrity of her fine china every Christmas on grandchildren who didn’t care for beef wellington, didn’t know the meaning of “braised,” and asked for at least six years running if she could heat up some hot dogs — don’t worry, they’d brought their own.
Received my copy of Afterword in the mail this week!