At first they didn’t know what do to with this big blond lady, dressed funny and hovering wistfully in the doorway during their rehearsals, but she gave them a few bars of 'Precious Lord' and the choir director felt God’s hand and saw then with the help of His sweet child Rose, the Prospect Street Choir was going all the way to the Gospel Olympics."
“Silver Water,” by Amy Bloom from the short story collection, Come to Me
There’s so much movement and energy in this sentence! It travels from Rose as an outsider, hovering wistfully at the doorway, to Rose as part of the choir, holding the key to glory. From isolation to community, from wishful to dominating the choir world. The short story form demands compression and efficiency, and this sentence delivers.
With three hard stresses—BIG BLOND LADy (capitalization=hard stress=syllables you say louder than other syllables)—Bloom makes the reader slow down and see Rose early in this sentence. Words are the material of language and inflection (hard stresses/soft stresses) is its spirit, writes Mary Oliver in Rules for the Dance. The three hard stresses are echoed by the later three hard stresses “sweet child Rose.” The two are in conversation and depict the transformation of Rose from an anonymous big blond lady to someone with a name, nestled in sweetness.
Then we come to the conjunction “but,” which always turns the sentence in a different direction and adds a little spark of tension. The sentence whisks away from isolation and lands on connection and community when Rose begins to sing and the choir director swoons and dreams of medals and accolades.
This is a sad, tragic story. Rose is mentally challenged and slowly goes crazy, committing suicide at the end. Yet, throughout the story there is humor, and this sentence gives you a sense of Bloom manages to do that. As we near the end of the sentence, the register changes with “was going all the way.” Register is nothing more than a name for a kind of diction, which is nothing more than a distinct way of saying something. Here, Bloom uses informal diction, which she set up well by naming the choir named Prospect Street Choir. Now we’re well prepared for the metaphor, which serves as the punchline. The gospel competition is compared to the Olympics—“the Prospect Street Choir was going all the way to the Gospel Olympics.”
Try It! What Do You Have To Gain?
Open with an independent clause that ends in three hard stresses, as Bloom did with “big blond lady.” Make sure that whatever you select to stress is something you want your reader to slow down and really see and experience.
Add modifiers, bringing more specificity to whatever you’re drawing attention to. Bloom wrote “dressed funny and hovering wistfully in the doorway during their rehearsals.” Note that the details add to Rose’s physicality.
Now add the conjunction “but,” which turns your sentence in a new direction, and add another independent clause (#2). What did you set up with your first independent clause? How can this one undercut it?
Add another conjunction “and,” and write a third independent clause (#3). Is there a consequence of the second independent clause? Is there room for three hard stresses to echo the earlier triad? A metaphor?
There’s room for the repetition of sound to add a little music:
Alliteration: big/blond; dressed/doorway/during; help/hand
Assonance: hand/and; blond/hovering/God/saw/Prospect/Gospel (this is interesting—so much cohesion here, linking the entire movement of the sentence); sweet/street.
Let me know how it goes!
What else do you see in this sentence?
I just saw this lovely quote: "The novel imitates life, where the short story is bony, and cannot wander.” —William Trevor
Hi Nina! I think I am most impressed by the musicality of the sentence. I can really hear it, musical speech a la Martin Luther King or Jesse Jackson. Lovely the melody, harmony and rhythm.