After a while, my courtesy starts getting away from me, growing bit by bit into something else, something I don’t know how to control. The smiles linger.
“Bartow Station,” by Jamel Brinkley, from his short story collection Witness
Jamel Brinkley’s new collection was published this month, and the title, Witness, is the organizing principle of the ten short stories and also points to what he masterfully and beautifully does as a writer: bear witness to the subtle shifts in the emotional and psychological landscape and then marry them to precise language. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said his new collection circles around the questions, “In the face of overwhelming systemic forces, how do we stay alert and sensitive and vulnerable, how do we wrestle with our imperfect selves, how do we endure, show care, pursue pleasure, joy, love?”
In this sentence, Brinkley pushes beyond the systemic force of the usual, cliche way of depicting the feeling of being overwhelmed and creates something original.
Brinkley uses personification, giving human abilities to courtesy, and with this agency, courtesy escapes the control of the narrator. As it gains more autonomy, it begins to change. I’m interested in time in narration, and the small phrase “bit by bit” conveys the passage of time without explicitly saying it. It also creates delay, thereby increasing tension, making the reader wait and wonder: what will this changing courtesy do?
For more emphasis and rhythm, he uses anadiplosis, the repetition of word(s) at or near the end of a phrase or clause and at or near the beginning of the next phrase: “something.” To create different rhythms, he varies the phrases syllabically, with the first one “something else,” three syllables, and the second, “something I don’t know how to control,” nine.
By choosing the imprecise word “something,” he creates a gap for the reader to step into the story and imaginatively participate.
He also uses colloquial diction with “getting away from me,” which contrasts with the rhythmic second part of the sentence. Varying register develops the character; in many of his stories, Brinkley uses syntax and diction to create Black characters without directly stating their race. In an interview with NPR, he said, “So with these stories, rather than have their Blackness pointed to in some explicit way, I wanted it to show up in other ways - right? - the ways that they speak, certain cultural cues, the syntax of their sentences, where they live, the rhythms of the prose. Like, those are ways that you can index African Americans and African American culture, too.”
I included the second sentence so you can hear the wonderful varying rhythm of a long sentence followed by a short one.
Your Turn
Choose an emotion or behavior. This will be the subject of your sentence. Now personify it by giving it human qualities or abilities. What can this emotion do? How will it act? Can you use colloquial language?
Add a modifying phrase that conveys a sense of time passing.
Now use anadiplosis for more emphasis and rhythm.
Add a second sentence that is short.
Tell me how it goes!
What else do you see?
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. I’ve watched my writing and my students’ writing blossom with this practice of paying close attention to the sentence.
Please visit my website to find all of my books: ninaschuyler.com (including “How to Write Stunning Sentences” and “Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal).
My New Novel:
Afterword is available now! If your book club chooses my book to read, I can Zoom in and talk to the group. If you’ve read my novel please consider posting an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads or social media.
Thank you!
Order links:
bookshop
Amazon
Clash Books
Upcoming Reading:
On Thursday, August 17th, 6:30 pm, I’ll be talking to Doug Henderson, author of The Cleveland Heights LGBTQ Sci-Fi and Fantasy Role Playing Club, about my novel Afterword. We’ll be at the Writers Grotto in San Francisco, 1663 Mission St. Ste. 602. Please join us! Free!
On August 21st, 7:-00 pm, I’m thrilled to be reading with the fabulous writers MK Chavez and Lauren Markham at the University of San Francisco Faculty Reading.
The Newsletter:
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“Fair warning,” Albert told Elise, “my love always takes its first tentative steps as a happy coy mermaid, all chocolate muffins and grape lollipops, but soon as your shields dissolve it may shrivel into some parsimonious curmudgeon in a dungeon—and not the kind of dungeon you like.”
“It still sounds better than social media,” she said.
It's not the same thing as your example sentence I don't think, but I'm reminded of a great quote from The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous: "Remember that we deal with alcohol -- cunning, baffling, powerful!"