Stunning Sentences
Thank you so much for being part of Stunning Sentences, a place where we get to stand in awe of a sentence.
Before we start, I want to explain how this will go. Really, it’s pretty straightforward. Every week, I’ll send you a sentence that caught my eye, that made me want to write it down and try it out. When that happens, I start taking it apart to understand it better, like looking under the car hood, though I’m no car mechanic.
What you can do
You can read the sentence and enjoy it for what it is.
Or you could try it out. If you’re a writer, I urge you to give it a whirl because it’s one thing to stand and marvel at a glorious sentence, and another thing to make one.
To take the pressure off, think of this place as a playground. Or maybe a sandbox, where creativity gets to make sandcastles that might topple or collapse or stand solidly against the wind and waves.
As I take the sentence apart, showing you what I see, at any point you can say, OK, that’s enough, I’m ready to make one. Although this process can be straightforward, it can quickly become complex, or at least heavily detailed.
Let me know
When I teach this class at the university, inevitably someone sees something about a sentence that I didn’t. Let me know in the Comments feature. If you took the leap and jumped into the sandbox (or playground) you can post your sentence. If you have questions, this is where you’d ask them. If in your reading travels you come across a sentence that you love, send it my way. Maybe we can figure it out.
And we’re ready
He crossed his arms on his midsection, bent against the wall, laughing. It was a staccato laugh, building on itself, broadening in the end to a breathless gasp, the laughter that marks a pause in the progress of the world, the laughter we hear once in 20 years. The Names, by Don DeLillo
I can hear that laugh all the way over here because DeLillo doesn’t let us rush by; he wants that laugh to ring out loudly. DeLillo adds more and more details about that laugh. He could have left the laugh alone after that first sentence, but he lets it fill the room and fill the reader’s mind.
This is a cumulative sentence, which, as the name suggests, accumulates or adds details. DeLillo modifies the laugh four times, actually five, if we include “staccato.” The laugh was:
“building on itself”
“broadening in the end to a breathless gasp”
“the laughter that marks a pause in the progress of the world”
“the laughter we hear once in 20 years.”
The cumulative sentence makes an impression on the reader. It sticks, in part, because it takes more of the page’s acreage. It keeps circling back to one aspect of the sentence, expanding on it, making it clearer, more specific. Its length makes room for rhythm and sound, which is another way of saying it makes music.
Try reading it out loud.
Do you hear the repetition of “b”? (building/broadening/breathless)
The short “a” sound? (laugh/gasp)
The repetition of “p”? (pause/progress)
The repetition of the short “e”? (end/breathless)
The repetition of the short “o”? (staccato/broadening/pause/progress)
The “w”? (we/once)
The short “I” (building/itself)
All that repetition provides cohesion and, ultimately, music.
How do you do it?
Start with an independent clause (also called a base clause or kernel). An independent clause can stand on its own. Here, it’s “It was a staccato laugh.” It could have stood there, alone, laughing staccato-like.
Then start adding details to either the subject, verb, the direct object or indirect object, or the whole sentence. In the DeLillo sentence, the only thing to modify is the subject.
But if you had a sentence like this, “The boy gave the woman a flower,” you could add details about the boy (subject), gave (verb), the woman (indirect object), or the flower (direct object), or the entire sentence.
So, you could end up with: The young, bright boy wearing a nice white suit gave the woman a flower.
Or: The boy gave a flower to the woman with dangly earrings, flowing bright red hair, and a voice that sounded like music, except when she smoked small little cigars.
Or….
You try. Make something. It’s a beautiful thing, soul-saving.
See you soon. And thank you for being part of this.
Playing with the same rhythm... this is what I came up with:
She brushed her broom over the floorboards,
swept along the floor,
singing.
It was a hypnotic song,
lilting on the breeze,
swaying in the air like a fairy flute,
a singing that holds the soul in the spirit of its tune,
a singing that calls soft "be mine, be bold".
Just found your Substack, and so happy I did. Thought I'd start from the beginning, and see how I go. I just love the idea of this - I do believe that beautiful, striking sentences are the heartbeat of good writing. So here's my first attempt. I've got two sentences, not one. I could have used a dash perhaps? Hmm. Now I'm not sure.
It was a purple flower, the deepest of purples, a purple that spoke of sultry nights in romantic places, and he’d have admired her dress, how its purple resonated with her eyes, as he held her close to gaze into their depths. But this was just a small boy, and he’d found the flower, and wasn’t it pretty?