I love this idea of intriguing sentences, not yet attached to a story, containing the seeds for a story to grow. Another very fun Stunning Sentence exercise! Here's mine (from my experience of needing to drive my husband's huge truck yesterday, not something I usually do!)--
She gripped the steering wheel and forced herself to take deep breaths as if she knew what she was doing, as if she’d done this a million times before; as if she wasn’t terrified, her left foot pressed to the vibrating floorboard, her right foot to the gas pedal.
Wonderful! I feel the tension right away with the word "gripped," which makes me wonder--why is she gripping the steering wheel. And I'm propelled forward to find out and then more tension with "as if she knew what she was doing." Now I think she's in trouble and I keep reading! The length of the sentence helps keep the suspense going. And I do hear the stirrings of a story!!
Jul 29, 2023·edited Jul 29, 2023Liked by Nina Schuyler
Thank you! This sentence prompt was so engaging I had to try it. Not sure it's a story seed but the idea of building a story through sentences intrigues me. And, Irving's final sentence is a gut punch.
She reached through the light patterns playing on the bottom of the pool as she swam away from her fear of the people partying under the gazebo, drinking margaritas in orange plastic cups, talking in loud, laughing voices; forgetting for a moment they were flotsam washed up on the shores of a great campus in a wide world where there was no longer a place for them.
I feel like a story waiting to be told! As the sentence goes along, it turns into a cumulative sentence with most of the modifying phrases referring to the people partying (nice alliteration) under the gazebo (great detail). We learn a lot about these people, drinking, talking, laughing, forgetting... the last sentence is where the protagonist comes back in because the sentence moves away from concrete physical details to how the protagonist views the people on the shores. A wonderful last part of the sentence!
Keep the door open.... see what blows through. There is something quite wonderful about writing to discover, unveiling things in your being that you didn't know were there, that, somehow, had been stored away.
Here is what I am playing with: She chewed the pineapple stick freshly sliced from the fruit harvested from the cup of long fingered leaves in the front yard and imagined the bromelain biting back, the lack of hospitality she felt in this house, and how her tongue would burn. tingle and bleed, but that she felt as alive as when she got a new tattoo.
So good! I love how the pineapple bromelain is linked to the lack of hospitality in the house; with that association, everything about the pineapple has two meanings: the literal pineapple and the lack of hospitality. (It's called the Doctrine of Association). You have the alliteration of plosives: bromelain biting back that captures the violence/aggressiveness of what's going on. I think I'd cut "in the front yard" so we quickly move to the alliteration, which is so powerful. You use series (3) with burn, tingle and bleed for a good rhythm. And the twist that all this pain leads to a feeling of aliveness. Also I appreciate the image of the "long fingered leaves." It's unique and sensual.
What a "story designer" sentence, not to mention the insightful last one. I'll have to read The World According to Garp now! Here's my feeble attempt:
I felt the mist of the hills moisten my limbs and feared that next it would come for my lungs, that it would gather the breathes of children and tell them the locomotive needed wet fuel; that its soft whiteness would be praised, for representing purity, for its power to persuade.
Beautiful! I love how the dependent clauses sweep the reader along, and we enter the narrator's subjectivity, going deeper and deeper. At first, I thought the mist was benign, even welcome. Then I come to the word "feared" and I have to let go of this first feeling. Then the fear is defined further--it might come for the narrator's lungs, gather the breaths of children. This was such an interesting phrasing. I'm not sure what "wet fuel" means but because we are in the narrator's point of view, I'm learning how the narrator thinks of the world. Then the fear of the mist continues to how it might be interpreted as a symbol. So interesting!
I've read many of John Irving's novels. After I finished the last words A Prayer for Owen Meany, I cried and cried. Quite the sentence you picked out there, Nina. Thanks for sharing "Stunning Sentences."
A previous post of yours gripped my attention. I acted. Then the local bookshop gripped my attention by text, to say my order has arrived. Now I must act again, to discover if your stunning sentences grip me from cover to cover. Peace, Maurice.
P.S. I recall now the time that the steering wheel of my own truck most certainly gripped my wife's determined, unfearful attention......
Aug 4, 2023·edited Aug 4, 2023Liked by Nina Schuyler
I like the insight that for Irving "the ending sentence is like the endnote to a piece of music." It reminds me of that quote from Virginia Woolf about writing and rhythm: "Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates waves in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it." Seems to me most people think that writing is about words, but maybe on some preverbal, primordial level it's really more about rhythm, about syntax, about...music. Could it be that it's the musical rhythm in a sentence that seeds a story, even more than plot?
Yes! So well said! In tomorrow's newsletter, I quote--and give a link to--Robert Frost's "Sound of Sense," in which he says: "The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader." To write my novel, I researched how humans learn language, and in the beginning, in the womb, babies are listening to sounds. When we're born, we're listening to sounds, not words, and learning to predict what sounds go together, which will eventually, we understand, become words.
Hey Nina, your excellent, gripping & highly technical books have arrived, and having arrived, have been read; and like your original post, have gripped my attention, so shall they continue to be read, repeatedly.... between writing my history mystery stories. Peace, Maurice
He studied the silk-cocooned corpse flickering on the pyre and imagined the holy man’s passage to the next realm; that his soul would emerge from the ashes and survey the chaos of the universe; would the wisdom of his many lives guide him, he wondered, Sadhan’s mind craving a journey through the stars, even as his body and heart returned to frail humankind.
Laurel, so good! The character's imagination carries the corpse into another realm and the dependent clauses expand on what might happen in that other realm. the image of a "silk-cocooned" corpse leaps off the page for me. Maybe you can add an image of how the holy man passes to the next realm--smoke? what color? A cloud? And you build tension with Sadhan's mind wanting one thing, but his body and heart desiring another.
I love this idea of intriguing sentences, not yet attached to a story, containing the seeds for a story to grow. Another very fun Stunning Sentence exercise! Here's mine (from my experience of needing to drive my husband's huge truck yesterday, not something I usually do!)--
She gripped the steering wheel and forced herself to take deep breaths as if she knew what she was doing, as if she’d done this a million times before; as if she wasn’t terrified, her left foot pressed to the vibrating floorboard, her right foot to the gas pedal.
Robin,
Wonderful! I feel the tension right away with the word "gripped," which makes me wonder--why is she gripping the steering wheel. And I'm propelled forward to find out and then more tension with "as if she knew what she was doing." Now I think she's in trouble and I keep reading! The length of the sentence helps keep the suspense going. And I do hear the stirrings of a story!!
Love how visceral this is, Robin!
Thank you! This sentence prompt was so engaging I had to try it. Not sure it's a story seed but the idea of building a story through sentences intrigues me. And, Irving's final sentence is a gut punch.
She reached through the light patterns playing on the bottom of the pool as she swam away from her fear of the people partying under the gazebo, drinking margaritas in orange plastic cups, talking in loud, laughing voices; forgetting for a moment they were flotsam washed up on the shores of a great campus in a wide world where there was no longer a place for them.
I feel like a story waiting to be told! As the sentence goes along, it turns into a cumulative sentence with most of the modifying phrases referring to the people partying (nice alliteration) under the gazebo (great detail). We learn a lot about these people, drinking, talking, laughing, forgetting... the last sentence is where the protagonist comes back in because the sentence moves away from concrete physical details to how the protagonist views the people on the shores. A wonderful last part of the sentence!
Thank you for such generous feedback. I don't know if I will do fiction again but your prompts have nudged the door open.
Keep the door open.... see what blows through. There is something quite wonderful about writing to discover, unveiling things in your being that you didn't know were there, that, somehow, had been stored away.
Your encouragement is a treasure! I will definitely keep playing with your prompts.
That is such a lovely sentence! I like how the light patterns in the pool offer refuge from the loud lost people on the shore.
Thanks for your insightful comment.
Love this sentence!
Here is what I am playing with: She chewed the pineapple stick freshly sliced from the fruit harvested from the cup of long fingered leaves in the front yard and imagined the bromelain biting back, the lack of hospitality she felt in this house, and how her tongue would burn. tingle and bleed, but that she felt as alive as when she got a new tattoo.
So good! I love how the pineapple bromelain is linked to the lack of hospitality in the house; with that association, everything about the pineapple has two meanings: the literal pineapple and the lack of hospitality. (It's called the Doctrine of Association). You have the alliteration of plosives: bromelain biting back that captures the violence/aggressiveness of what's going on. I think I'd cut "in the front yard" so we quickly move to the alliteration, which is so powerful. You use series (3) with burn, tingle and bleed for a good rhythm. And the twist that all this pain leads to a feeling of aliveness. Also I appreciate the image of the "long fingered leaves." It's unique and sensual.
What a "story designer" sentence, not to mention the insightful last one. I'll have to read The World According to Garp now! Here's my feeble attempt:
I felt the mist of the hills moisten my limbs and feared that next it would come for my lungs, that it would gather the breathes of children and tell them the locomotive needed wet fuel; that its soft whiteness would be praised, for representing purity, for its power to persuade.
Beautiful! I love how the dependent clauses sweep the reader along, and we enter the narrator's subjectivity, going deeper and deeper. At first, I thought the mist was benign, even welcome. Then I come to the word "feared" and I have to let go of this first feeling. Then the fear is defined further--it might come for the narrator's lungs, gather the breaths of children. This was such an interesting phrasing. I'm not sure what "wet fuel" means but because we are in the narrator's point of view, I'm learning how the narrator thinks of the world. Then the fear of the mist continues to how it might be interpreted as a symbol. So interesting!
Thank you, Nina! I will think of a different adjective to replace "wet." I love these exercises!
You are continuing your Stanford class right here! So nice to continue working with you.
I've read many of John Irving's novels. After I finished the last words A Prayer for Owen Meany, I cried and cried. Quite the sentence you picked out there, Nina. Thanks for sharing "Stunning Sentences."
He has an interesting writing process that, because it's so focused on the sentence, I wanted our community to know about it.
I have only read Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire, and The Cider House Rules, but all three of those were life-altering.
A previous post of yours gripped my attention. I acted. Then the local bookshop gripped my attention by text, to say my order has arrived. Now I must act again, to discover if your stunning sentences grip me from cover to cover. Peace, Maurice.
P.S. I recall now the time that the steering wheel of my own truck most certainly gripped my wife's determined, unfearful attention......
Maurice,
I feel a story emerging from the seed of the word "grip."
Nina,
This has got to me one of your most gripping posts.
Wow! Can you say more about this?
I like the insight that for Irving "the ending sentence is like the endnote to a piece of music." It reminds me of that quote from Virginia Woolf about writing and rhythm: "Now this is very profound, what rhythm is, and goes far deeper than words. A sight, an emotion, creates waves in the mind, long before it makes words to fit it." Seems to me most people think that writing is about words, but maybe on some preverbal, primordial level it's really more about rhythm, about syntax, about...music. Could it be that it's the musical rhythm in a sentence that seeds a story, even more than plot?
Yes! So well said! In tomorrow's newsletter, I quote--and give a link to--Robert Frost's "Sound of Sense," in which he says: "The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader." To write my novel, I researched how humans learn language, and in the beginning, in the womb, babies are listening to sounds. When we're born, we're listening to sounds, not words, and learning to predict what sounds go together, which will eventually, we understand, become words.
Hey Nina, your excellent, gripping & highly technical books have arrived, and having arrived, have been read; and like your original post, have gripped my attention, so shall they continue to be read, repeatedly.... between writing my history mystery stories. Peace, Maurice
I like that as Sgt. Garp is going one way our protagonist is going the other. Leave it to Jenny to find a way to make life from death.
Oh, that's good. I keep coming back to the technique of contrast--how important it is at the story level and the sentence level.
It’s also true on the life level, though we don’t always notice it immediately.
Decided to go in the other direction:
He studied the silk-cocooned corpse flickering on the pyre and imagined the holy man’s passage to the next realm; that his soul would emerge from the ashes and survey the chaos of the universe; would the wisdom of his many lives guide him, he wondered, Sadhan’s mind craving a journey through the stars, even as his body and heart returned to frail humankind.
Still needs work.
Laurel, so good! The character's imagination carries the corpse into another realm and the dependent clauses expand on what might happen in that other realm. the image of a "silk-cocooned" corpse leaps off the page for me. Maybe you can add an image of how the holy man passes to the next realm--smoke? what color? A cloud? And you build tension with Sadhan's mind wanting one thing, but his body and heart desiring another.
Thank you! I’ll work on it. 🙏🙏🏼🙏🏿🙏🏻