As he lay in recovery, the morphine drip only prolonged his obsession with the unbaled hay, since it allowed him to forget about his shoulder, which he had come to think of not as his but as a kind of alien planet fastened to his torso, which glowed red like Mars, whirling with agony, as soon as the morphine ran low.
“The Good Samaritan,” by Thomas McGuane
I love when a sentence does the unexpected. It reminds me of how much I don’t know about the world, how much the human brain filters out to make sense of things. And even when it allows something in, I don’t completely and fully understand it, as Mary Oliver says in her poem, “Mysteries”: “Truly we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.”
In McGuane’s sentence, the strange bursts in with the shoulder turning into an alien planet, glowing red like Mars, whirling with agony.
The main character, Szabo, is a practical man who fell off his tractor and injured his shoulder. He doesn’t seem the type to compare his shoulder to an alien planet. Then again, he’s dosed up on morphine, and then again, there is much he doesn’t understand about himself or the world.
The sentence smartly builds to this weird image, and its growth is primarily through dependent clauses—clauses that contain a subject and verb but don’t express a complete thought (ie, they can’t stand alone by their lonely selves).
1. The sentence opens with the first dependent clause, giving the reader a sense of Szabo’s physical state—As he lay in recovery
2. Now comes the base clause—the morphine drip only prolonged his obsession with the unbaled hay
3. The second dependent clause follows—since it allowed him to forget about his shoulder
4. The third dependent clause refers back to the previous clause, adding more specificity about Szabo’s shoulder—which he had come to think of not as his but as a kind of alien planet fastened to his torso. It’s called a relative clause because it starts with the relative pronoun, “which.” In this clause, McGuane embeds a correlative conjunction, not/but, and it’s this that sets up the weird image.
As you explore the minutiae of sentences, you’ll discover things you rarely use; for me, the correlative conjunction is one of those things, but I want to start using it because I really like how it grows a sentence. It also has a built-in comparison that adds a little tension. Here are some other correlative conjunctions: both/and, neither/nor, not only/but also, as/as, as many/as, no sooner/than.
Here, his shoulder is not his, but an alien planet attached to his torso.
5. The fourth dependent clause is another relative clause, and by adding more details to the alien planet, which glows red like Mars, McGuane makes the reader linger here, turning the image turns sticky, staying with the reader. (Here’s another thing I rarely use—“which” followed by another “which,” but I’m going to try it now). McGuane holds the reader here for one more beat by adding a phrase that further describes the planet—whirling with agony
6. The fifth dependent clause ends the sentence: as soon as the morphine ran low.
Try it! So Much to Gain
Open with a dependent clause and follow it with your base clause (also called an independent clause, which has a subject and verb and can stand alone).
Now write your second dependent clause, as McGuane did: since it allowed him to forget about his shoulder.
Your third dependent clause is a relative clause that refers to the noun in the previous dependent clause. In this third clause, you’ll include the correlative conjunction, not/but.
Can you introduce a weird image? Something unexpected? Ultimately, it has to fit thematically or with your character, but on the first draft, loosen the restraints and see what you can create. Here, McGuane essentially rejects the conventional—not his shoulder—and invites in the strange—an alien planet. It is sort of a metaphor.
Add your fourth dependent clause, another relative clause, adding more details about your strange image. Now add a phrase that adds even more details about the strange image.
End with a fifth and final dependent clause.
There’s room for music:
Assonance: unbaled/hay; shoulder/prolonged/glowed/low; planet/fastened
Let me know how it goes!
What else do you see in this sentence?
PS: I’m teaching a class, “Making Metaphors” for Book Passage on October 29, Saturday, 10:30-12:00 pm, PST, online. I’ll offer a couple of strategies for how to create metaphors.
Here’s the link to sign up:
https://www.bookpassage.com/event/online-class-nina-schuyler-making-metaphors
Big News! I sold my novel! It’ll be out May 2023, but it would be wonderful if you could pre-order.
Invite the Strange
This is a crazy, beautiful sentence. I didn’t like it at first, but it’s growing on me. I’ve never heard of correlative conjunctions but I think I have been using them anyway, or am I imagining this?
What do you make of the two "which"s? I tend to avoid that kind of repetition in my writing. I'd probably substitute the first which with that if I this were my own sentence.