Alicia’s main goal, back in the mid-Carter, Cenozoic Era--before Silicon Valley spawned a population of Geekus millionairus, before the Me Generation erupted on the scene, creating a fissure through which Reaganomics trickled down into American bedrock—was getting her Paleontology professor into bed.
“Bones of an Inland Sea,” by Mary Akers
The right diction animates an entire world, including the character who inhabits it. Akers’ sentence is a reminder of how quickly you can unveil a character by choosing the right words. This sentence is the opening of her short story, and already I have a sense of Alicia because her perspective infuses the diction. Her view of the world is political, geological, and paleontological. Time is situated politically—the reference to “mid-Carter” and “Reaganomics,”--and geologically: the “Cenozoic Era,” and the metaphor that ushers in the image of a fissure and American bedrock.
Alicia also has a sense of humor; she invents the word, “Geekus millionairus.” There’s also humor in the juxtaposition of Alicia’s main goal, which is usually associated with seriousness, a purpose of life, and her actual goal: sex. For whatever reason, the plosive sounds (p/b/t/d/k/g/are funnier than other sounds, and Akers ends the sentence with seven plosives: paleontology, professor, into, bed.
All accomplished in one sentence!
This is a mid-branching sentence, with the modifying information coming in the middle of the sentence, separating the subject, “goal,” from the linking verb “was getting.” The mid-branching sentence is the perfect envelope to engorge a sentence with ideas. The architecture creates suspense by delaying the verb, and the overarching suspense allows you to include a lot of information.
To separate the subject from the verb, Akers uses an em dash and includes four modifiers, which are variable in length and syllable count. This variety makes for interesting sounds for the ear. She also uses anaphora, with the repetition of “before” to make more music. The modifiers also situate us in the past.
1. back in the mid-Carter, Cenozoic Era (12 syllables)
2. before Silicon Valley spawned a population of Geekus millionairus (20 syllables)
3. before the Me Generation erupted on the scene (14)
4. creating a fissure through which Reaganomics trickled down into American bedrock (21)
Note the fourth modifier is a subordinate phrase that refers to the third modifier.
Your Turn
This is a mid-branching sentence, so you’ll separate your subject from your verb to create suspense.
Between the subject and verb, add four modifiers. As you think about the modifiers, can you invoke your character’s diction? How does your character see the world? What infuses your character’s language? Things to consider: profession, education, age, religion, hobbies, friends, and relatives.
For the modifiers, can you vary the syllable count and the lengths? Can you add anaphora for more rhythm?
If you want to invite humor, can you create one tone through your subject and another through the verb and direct object or indirect object?
There’s more opportunity for music:
The alliteration of “m” and “p” knits the sentences together: main/millionairus/Me; and “p,” population/ Paleontology/professor
Try it!
Let me know how it goes.
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. In each of these classes, we spend 10 to 15 weeks drenched in the beauty of sentences, reading them and writing them. As an adjunct professor, I’ve also taught Techniques of Long Fiction, Architecture of Prose, Workshops, Characterization, Making Metaphor, Point of View, and many other classes. My new novel, Afterword, will be published by Clash Books in May 2023 and is available for preorder.
I have a new story published by Nashville Review called “Wolf Troubles.” It was inspired by a gray wolf, OR-93, who made the trek from Oregon all the way down to Ventura County, California, the first time a wolf had traveled so far in over 200 years. In awful news, he was struck and killed by a truck. But my wolf lives!
Here’s the link:
https://wp0.vanderbilt.edu/nashvillereview/archives/18241
One of the hardest sentences to pull off because so often the interrupters pull away from the main line of the sentence, testing the reader’s grip while waiting for the verb. I think it works, too, because the branches echo the time reference: “before” links to “back.” And in a rare case, here the weak verb actually helps by reducing the cognitive challenge a generally better verb might pose.
Thank you, another must-check-out writer! What a beautiful sentence. The words and thought-games and references pulled me in deliciously. “Geekus millionairus” is just perfect. And while I am back there in the late seventies did I not spy a bumper sticker that read, “Paleontologists do it deeper…and more slowly”? Anyway, just lovely, vibrating with a character I will follow anywhere! (And the way time stretches out from the seventies to at least the turn of the millennium and maybe beyond is also stunning. But wait: she got economics, politics, history and philosophy in there as well. Is this writer some kind of Joycean genius? I’m betting yes!)