I'm Hearing Voices

Before Women Had Wings by Connie May Fowler

Back in 1965, on a day so hot that God Almighty should have been writhing with sick-to-the-stomach guilt over driving His children out of the cool green of Eden, my daddy walked into our grocery store, held a revolver to his head, told my mama that he couldn’t take any more and that because of her harsh way and his many sins he was going to blow his brains out.

Before Women Had Wings, by Connie May Fowler

cool green of Eden

When you choose to tell a story with a first-person narrator, you swing the door wide open to all kinds of fantastic diction. If editors say, “I want a story with voice,” they usually are asking for a vast variety of words, turns of phrases, made-up words, and syntactical variations, all of which not only develop the narrator but also create a medley of different sounds for the ear. In this opening sentence of Fowler’s novel, the narrator, who is nicknamed Bird, is made specific and vivid and alive. You hear her; you can picture her; you are pulled in close.

Bird is a child, and, in general, children use hyperbole, as Bird does here. It’s not just a hot day; it’s a day “so hot that God Almighty should have been writhing with sick-to the stomach guilt over driving His children out of the cool green of Eden.” And not just guilt, but “sick-to-the-stomach guilt.” I have two children, and I greatly admire their use of hyperbole to get my attention. (“I’m going to lose all my friends if you don’t let me go!”) With Bird’s description of God and his “sick-to-the-stomach guilt,” personification slips in too.

This is a left-branching sentence, with the two prepositional phrases, “Back in 1965, on a day...” delaying the base clause. After the phrases, the hyperbolic dependent clause mentioned in the previous paragraph comes next. With the opening prepositional phrases, Fowler signals that Bird is a retrospective narrator. This means Bird is positioned from a later temporal vantage point, looking back on past events. Now, that door to diction has swung open even more. The prose doesn’t have to confine itself to childlike language. A more adult voice, with complex syntax and diction, can enter, creating a rich sonic story.

The syntax is a great build to the base clause.

“my daddy walked into our grocery store, held a revolver to his head, told my mama that he couldn’t take any more and that because of her harsh way and his many sins he was going to blow his brains out.”

The base clause has three verbs, “walked/held/told.” Fowler eliminates the final “and,” a style technique called asyndeton, to create speed. The final verb, “told,” needs a direct object. The two dependent clauses beginning with “that,” serve as the direct object, answering the question: what did father tell mama?:

1. that he couldn’t take any more (and)

2. that because of her harsh way and his many sins he was going to blow his brains out

I’ve used the term “nesting” before, and what I mean is a clause or phrase within a clause. Here, with the second “that,” Fowler includes or “nests” the phrase, “because of her harsh way and his many sins.” It’s a little clunky yet mimetic of a child’s diction.

There is a lot of music in this sentence. Do you hear the alliteration? So/sick/stomach/store/sins; blow/brains; hold/head/harsh. Lately, when I’m reading, I really hear the vowel sounds assonance. In this sentence, there is so much! green/Eden; on/hot/God/Almighty/walked/mama; day/way/brains.

The sentence ends with many plosives, sounds that explode from the mouth, “b” in “blow” and “brains” and “t” in the word “out,” capturing the threatened violence of the event.

Your Turn

Open with two short prepositional phrases that establish the year and the weather. Use a dependent clause to further describer the weather/temperature. Can you use hyperbole?

Now comes your base clause with three verbs. The final verb should be a transitive verb, one that requires a direct object. Take a look at this list.

Can you add alliteration? Assonance? Does the sentence need to end with plosives? Or should it end with softer sounds?

What else do you see?

How did it go?

Maybe this substack would be a great gift for a writer friend.

Swimming in Style!

For paid subscribers, each month, we gather on Zoom for 90 minutes to write stunning sentences. A single, solitary sentence can blossom into a scene, into another scene, and soon you have a story. I’ve seen it happen many times. We are also building a really wonderful community of writers!

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Our next monthly gathering is January 25 at 11:00 PST.

At our last gathering, we tried two paragraphs, one of longing and nostalgia and another that syntactically mimics surprise. Amazing writing happened! So we’ll do paragraphs again. (A subscriber already sent me one and it’s marvelous!)

Please note: I send out the Zoom link via a substack post called “Swimming in Style…” and then whatever month we meet. In this case, it will be “Swimming in Style in January.” Please look for this.

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. 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.

IN THIS RAVISHING WORLD:

Winner of the W.S. Porter Prize and the Prism Prize for Climate Literature

“Powerfully beautiful and beautifully powerful, Schuyler has written exactly the book this moment needs." Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author

“A brilliantly conceived and eloquent new linked story collection.”–Jane Ciabattari, Lithub

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