The Real Writer

Down to the Bones: the Key Points in Your Book

My latest post on JMWW - about inciting incidents, pinch and major points, master scenes, and more! Get the low down on what these are, where they should show up in your book, and how to fix/plan/tweak if they're missing.

Down to the Bones

We can talk ad nauseum about elements of craft where fiction is concerned, and we will in other posts, I promise, but what's really important, is underlying structure, how a story/book is put together.

If you're not making the right connections at the right time, the piece will be just a wandering mess with some key moments that the reader knows should really mean something, but kind of don't.

Here are key points and scenes to determine in your story/book. You can figure these out now, when you've just started (best way!), halfway through (nice save!), or once your book is finished (all is not lost!). Once you've read through them I'll put you to work.

INCITING INCIDENT:

What sets events in motion and leads to the FIRST MAJOR PLOT POINT. This should happen fairly quickly. Ideally within the first 5-10 pages. Definitely Act One. (I'm a fan of IN MEDIAS RES—starting your story/book in the middle of the action that changes the status quo of your characters and their world. Starts everything with a bang and also gets the inciting incident out of the way.)

To read the full article:

Down to the Bones - JMWW

 

Join the JUST WRITE IT Mentoring/Editing Program!

Dear Real Writers,

I invite whoever is ready to be part of a 'JUST WRITE IT' program to sign up and finally do what you're always saying you want to do:  write that book.

 I will take on 3-5 people who want 1, 3, or 6 months of mentoring and editing from me to start, continue, or finish a manuscript. You will turn in a set number of pages every two weeks and I will read and edit them. We will also have two phone calls a month where I'll inspire and challenge you to move forward on your manuscript.

The right Real Writer will commit to meeting the two week deadline that he/she sets, as well as the page count, based on whether he/she chooses a 1, 3, or 6 month writing blitz. That's what it is. A blitz. Choose to deeply engage with your writing dream for whatever period you can commit to. Try one month and then add another! Or 3!

You'll receive both mentoring AND editing from me, which is twice the benefit, but you'll only pay for half of those services.

I hear all the time from writers that they need someone to push them. They need structure. They need someone to talk them through the details of their book. And they need someone who can edit the work so they can improve as they write.

And year after year (after year!) they don't write that book. It never has the life it should, and they miss out on the amazing, challenging, inspiring, high-inducing experience of navigating their story and meeting and interacting with their characters.

No waking up in the middle of the night with a scene in their head. Laughing to themselves in line at the grocery story when a line of dialogue shows up. Feeling the magic of a plot piece falling into place. Ideas come from everywhere. I swear, it starts to seem like the whole world is conspiring to help you write the book.

The only way to make this happen is to just do it. There's no other magic formula (sorry!). And I'd like to help writers during the process, as what I'll teach you along the way will improve your writing. You'll see it happening as you progress!

If you're SERIOUS about your writing, email me therealwriter@gmail.com and we'll figure out the best plan for you.

When I say serious, I mean it. Here's a little tough love for you: don't waste my time or yours if you're not. (But I hope you'll be ready someday, I don't want you to miss out on the experience.)

Fiction, nonfiction, or poetry - all are welcome.

Let's get it done, once and for all, shall we?

New Telesminar: WHAT EDITORS WANT

REGISTER NOW! Telesminar: WHAT EDITORS WANT:

Monday, December 17, 7:00 p.m. EST.

What you'll learn:

- the picky little things that mean so much and can transform your manuscript

- the 5 Acts and what should be in each one

- what should be in your first sentence, your first paragraph, and your first two pages.

$50 includes the recording and my critique of your first 2 pages.

Email me and save your space! therealwriter@gmail.com

(If you missed it, the recording and the critique will be available for purchase after the call.)

You Had Me At Your First Two Pages: Grabbing Your Reader/Agent/Editor Right Away

 Here's my latest post over at JMWW:

These days, it's not the first 50 pages or the first chapter of a book that must wow an agent or editor, it's the first two pages. Let's face it, everyone thinks they can write and has a story to tell, so there's more competition out there. Whether the writing is good or bad or dreadful, with more of it to wade through, agents and editors have less time and patience for reading manuscripts. You must grab their attention right away. So let's break it down and send your readers into orbit! Or at least stay up way past their bedtime because they can't put your book down.

What Pulls Agents In

action
mystery/intrigue
unusual point of view
great writing
compelling character or setting
a promise to be fulfilled
conflict to be resolved

What Pushes Agents Away

poor writing
clichés
POV/verb tense problems
lots of backstory
not enough conflict
telling not showing
confusing structure
too many points of view
too many people/names in first chapter

First Sentence....

To find out what your first sentence, paragraph, and chapter should contain and accomplish, read the rest here: Chris Stewart's: MFA My Way 

Fun With Rhetorical Devices

Last time we talked about two main types of sentences: loose (or running)  and periodic. To catch up on that post, go here.

Today I’d like to share some fun types of sentences you can try that have Greek rhetorical devices with tongue twisting names and challenging elements.

When trying these out (when writing a sentence, period), things to consider are its length, it’s rhythm, its balance (if you have a sentence with clauses and phrases, are they balanced or not – equal length? Parallel form – meaning similarly constructed?), and its sound (correspondence of sound between words for example, repetition, alliteration. Pleasing to the ear? Dissonant?).

Warning:  if using some of these devices as you write slows you down and clogs the flow of writing, wait until the revision process to see how some of these might be employed.  And then, have fun and take risks.

You poets might recognize some of these. Extra points for you!

(Image Credit: Kirstyn Leuner for her Women's Studies class in rhetoric - great post for further reading there.)

Anaphora – use of the same word to begin a succession of clauses. Thought to add grace, rigor, and amplification.

"I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun." (Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely,
1940)

Asyndeton – a series of clauses piled up without connectives.

"He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac." (Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957)

Homeoteleuton – helps achieve a kind of rhythm through use of succession of like ending words. A form of amplification.

"My mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her
hands."  (Launce in Act II, scene three of The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare)

Paralepsis-  a strategy to emphasize a point by seeming to pass over it, resolving to avoid mentioning something while doing exactly that.

"The music, the service at the feast,

The noble gifts for the great and small,

The rich adornment of Theseus's palace . . .

All these things I do not mention now."

(Chaucer, "The Knight's Tale," The Canterbury Tales)

Prenthesis/Digressio – an interruption of thought which heightens anticipation or scores a point arising from, but not directly relevant to, the subject in hand.

Also known as digression, going off topic to explain or expound.

"Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton, or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones."  (Ray Bradbury)

Zeugma – (This is one of my favorites.) When a word modifies two or more words although its use may be grammatically or logically correct with only one.

"You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit." (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

Similar to:

Syllepsis – (My other favorite!) One word, usually a verb, is understood differently in relation to the two or more other words it modifies.

One of my students gave me a great example I still use:

“She was pink with sweat and taffeta.”

In this case, the word that makes this device possible is pink, pink taffeta, and flushed skin.  So there you have an example of it used with an adjective instead of a verb.

Paronamasia – Word play, punning.

"A good farmer is nothing more nor less than a handyman with a sense of humus." (E.B. White,
"The Practical Farmer") 

You can always count on E.B. White. If you haven’t read his essays, you are so missing out.

Just one more. I have pages of these and I wish I could share them all with you. I am a total geek about this stuff.  I giggle happily to myself when I manage a syllepsis. It’s embarrassing.

Tricolon/Triad – a series of three parallel words, phrases, or clauses.

"I require three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid."  (Dorothy Parker)

"You are talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at catastrophe." (The Wizard in The Wizard of Oz, 1939)

Kenning – Not Greek, Old English, but so fun. Something you must start using in your work from now on. It’s such rich territory and working with it will sharpen your skills with metaphor. 

The word ‘kenning’ means ‘to know’.  A kenning is a figurative expression, usually compound, used in place of a name or noun.

I give this assignment out to my students, to use this word, for both poetry and prose classes, and it’s amazing and inspiring to hear what they come up with. Try it. You’ll amaze and inspire yourself!

Examples: ‘whale-road’ for ‘sea’. ‘Sea-horse’ for ‘ship.’ 

See? Reading Beowulf paid off!

You are using something you never thought you would. Can’t do the same for algebra I’m afraid. Sorry.

Let’s move on to two sentences you can try: paraprosdokian and the American sentence.

The paraprosdokian is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part. It is frequently used for humorous or dramatic effect, sometimes producing an anticlimax. For this reason, it is extremely popular among comedians and satirists.

Some paraprosdokians not only change the meaning of an early phrase, but also play on the double meaning of a particular word, creating a syllepsis. We’ve discussed that above. The trick is not to force it. Don't look like you spent longer than two seconds creating it.

Here are some examples of funny paraprosdokian sentences (if they're not your style, write mean or dark or wry ones. Go for it. Make it your own).

(By the way, I have no idea where these came from. They were forwarded to me in an email so if I'm infringing on somebody's copyright, just let me know and I'll pull them.)

“Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you
with experience.”

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on the list.”

“Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until
you hear them “speak.

“If I agreed with you we'd both be wrong.”

The American Sentence will appeal to both poets and prose writers. It was created by the poet Allen Ginsberg, whose favorite piece of writing advice was, “Condense!”

He thought the Japanese form of Haiku didn’t quite fit when it came to writing in English in a 5/7/5 syllable lines.  That breaking them into this pattern made it an exercise in counting, not feeling. 

And too arbitrary. His solution, which first appeared in his book Cosmopolitan Greetings, is the American Sentence. One sentence, 17 syllables. That's it.

Here are some of Ginsberg's American Sentences:

Four skinheads stand in the streetlight rain chatting under an umbrella.  1987

Rainy night on Union square, full moon. Want more poems? Wait till  I'm dead.  August 8, 1990, 3:30A.M.

The more you practice at the cellular level of writing – words and sentences and the devices
that make them sing – the better a writer you’ll be. Eventually, you’ll employ devices like these without even knowing you’re doing it.

So when you’re reading your drafts afterward, you have every right to be suitably impressed.

You'll also be more beautiful, smarter, make more money, and lose ten pounds.

If you give these a try – any of the devices in this post – paste them into the comments.
I’d love to see them.

Get Conflicted - Using Conflict to Make Your Story Zing

My lastest article in JMWW:

GET CONFLICTED

In my article last fall, we discussed character and what yours needs to sustain a reader's interest and incite their passion. Whether that is hate or love. Both will keep a reader reading.

Let's take on conflict, as that's the next biggie when building a story or book.

Conflict is what drives your plot and should be set up immediately. Ideally in the first paragraph (using "show," not "tell") when you're also setting up your character(s) and setting. Your inciting incident (what changes the status quo of the story and starts the plot rolling forward) may also appear right away. This is called starting in medias res, Latin for "in the middle of things." Your inciting incident may also start a few pages later but, for a novel, it should begin in the first five to twelve pages (your average chapter length). The sooner the better!

Agents and editors read the first two pages max (sometimes just the first paragraph) to decide if it's worth their time to keep reading. Make it pop from the beginning.

For a short story, conflict would have to show up much sooner. This is where in medias res comes in handy. It's just plain efficient and more interesting. Without it, you're in danger of beginning with too much exposition and killing the reader's interest.

Some ideas for the inciting incident that demonstrates conflict...

To read the rest of this post: JMWW, Spring

AUTHOR SALON: Where Writers Produce Publishable Work and Where Agents and Editors Find Them

I recently joined a website which I would categorize as a mix of online conference, peer critique, and matchmaking with agents and editors. Author Salon provides writers with the visibility and promotion necessary to get them “published by major players in the business.”  It's a Literary Social Network.

Why a site like this has taken this long to come into being, I don’t know, but thank goodness it's here!  It’s a terrific way to be part of a committed, talented group of writers, receive valuable critique, and make you and your book visible to the agents and editors looking for new work and new voices.

At present, membership is free because the site is in Beta testing, but only for a short time, then it’s $9.99 per month with a portion of the fee going to Smile Train, a charity created for children born with clefts. 

Once you become a member, you fill out an extensive profile, which takes a couple of hours (so don’t start this on your lunch hour at work). The profile includes details about your book such as word count, genre, comparables, synopsis, hook, conflict, protagonist, unique world, and climax/denouement. You also provide the first two pages, about 20 lines of your best dialogue, and two short prose samples. There is also a section for your bio and background, your writing life, what inspired the book, and what you’re reading. In this way, you give an agent or editor a sense of who you are, your work, and your platform.

That said, you don’t have to be an accomplished writer to join the site, but you should be committed to becoming one, which includes honing your craft and building your platform.

And you have to be committed to the Author Salon process because it is rigorous.

There are three phases: In Production, Editor Suite, and Marquee Lounge.

During the In Production phase writers friend each other and ask five people in their genre to critique their profile. Once they receive a certain rating or above, the writer moves to the Editor Suite phase where the same process takes place, and 50 pages of one’s work is also exchanged with another set of five reviewers. Each writer reads the work of five others he or she has agreed to work with and critiques and ratings take place again.

In the third level, the Marquee Lounge, the writer’s profile is now open to the agents and editors looking for work to represent or publish.

This ensures that only those who are committed to the process, not just of Author Salon, but of writing a great, marketable book, make it to the final level because along the way writers are told by their peers and Author Salon staff what works, what doesn't work, and what needs to be developed further - while they can still do something about it - and before an agent or publisher shuts the door in their face.

There are several wonderful aspects of Author Salon.

First: The people. I’ve met friendly, creative, determined writers on this site. Their critique comments are well thought through and demonstrate how seriously they take the process and how much they have engaged with my work. Every genre is represented here: young adult, middle grade, fantasy, sci fi, narrative nonfiction, general nonfiction, fiction (women’s upscale, literary, historical), thriller, mystery, detective, romance, paranormal romance. I know I’m missing some. Whatever you write – it’s in here and there are plenty of other people in your genre ready to sign on to work with you.

Second: It’s professional. The structure, the content, the feedback. Weak and poorly filled out profiles are not approved for membership. You can’t be half-assed here. You have to mean it. You have to more than mean it actually! This site asks you to be ALL IN. So you have to ask yourself: How much do I want to be published? Then give it everything you’ve got because the site requires no less of you and you should require the same of yourself. Otherwise you're wasting your time and everyone else’s.

Third: The tech factor. There is a forum for chatting and for the critique process. There are audio and visual components so you can post a book trailer or a recorded reading you gave (video or audio). You can send email via a profile link within the system, but also start private conversations in the forum itself. You also have a personal blog tab on your profile.

Fourth: Expert bloggers. There’s a whole section where writers, editors, agents, anyone and everyone associated with the biz have been invited to blog. You can find anything you want to know in this section. Recently, Author Salon itself posted an article on how to write the six act novel.

Did I mention that the biggest and best agents and editors are there? They’ve sold books to or work for Random House, Viking, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Little Brown and more. Maybe they are looking for a book just like yours.

Convinced yet? Check it out yourself: Author Salon.

See you there. 

What's Your Writing Life or Writing Goal Theme for 2012?

I'd like to share a quirky little ritual I do every New Year's Eve.

I'm a writer so I'm imaginative. I love the symbolic and figurative. And this ritual is that!

You need:

- 15-30 minutes of undisturbed quiet

- Some pieces of paper or better yet, a journal

- Something fun to write with. This is not the time for the boring ballpoint pen (although I love them for writing in general). Get a colored marker or pencil or even crayon. Or that fancy fountain pen someone gave you years ago that you never use. Or a quill if you're into period dramas on PBS, like me!

- A drink. Something to toast with. That can be tea or wine or whiskey or water. Up to you.

- A fireplace or big spaghetti pot or ashtray, and matches.

You may have heard of this type of  'write it and burn it' thing but bear with me. I have some fun and important questions ahead.

And, it's really helpful to release a year. To 'complete' it so to speak. The good and the bad, in order to move towards the writing life and goals that are important to you. You can't do that dragging around your perceived inadequacies and failures from the previous year. 

Note I said perceived.

I always say there is no failed writing and I say the same for whatever you reached for this year: some contests, a fellowship, an agent. If you didn't get it either you're not ready and there's still practicing to do (don't you want to give your best?), or there's something better around the corner for you to receive. I tend to think it's both. So take heart!

(Pardon me, I'm feeling colorful today.)

Read through the process before beginning.

Take out your paper and write all the crazy, complicated, depressing, sad, frustrating, heartbreaking things that happened this year related to your writing. Just purge everything.

For me, the biggest thing was that I lost my 18 year old Westie, Keegan, a once-in-a-lifetime-extraordinary dog  and went through a period of considering giving up writing for a while. It just didn't feel important or necessary anymore. Here's my boy a month before he let me know he was ready to go:

He was as delicious as he looks.

Anyway, the LAST thing I felt like doing was writing. I talked this over with my writing group and they were very supportive. I kept going to the meetings and workshopping their pieces. And I didn't write for several months - about four. Usually I write to get through a sad time, but it didn't work for me this go round. I couldn't read either.

Eventually, in late May, I wrote some poems, then pulled out a novel idea I'd been wanting to start, and in a weekend I had the outline. I felt a glimmer of 'good' about writing again and decided to start slowly, about 10 pages a month. And now I'm in the last third of it and it's turning out really well.

How about you? Get it all out. Everything that makes you sad and mad about your writing and writing life in the last year. No time to write because of the kids? Lost your job so all your time was spent looking for a new one? No money to go to the conference you've been dreaming of? It all goes here.

Here are some questions to help organize your thoughts:

1) What were my biggest lessons and challenges in 2011?

2) What were my biggest disappointments in 2011? 

3) What am I ready to let go of from this past year?

 Now do the same for everything that went right. The goods, the surprises, the gifts of ideas and characters and images and poems. Maybe you were really disciplined this year about writing and kept your butt in the chair when you were supposed to. Maybe you won a scholarship to a writing conference or won or placed in a contest. Maybe your query letter garnered full manuscript requests from 75% of the agents you queried. Even if no one took it - that's a success. And they gave you feedback in their response, so USE IT to make the book better.

1) What am I most proud of in the past year?

2) What surprised me about myself?

3) What made me feel great about my writing and my abilities? 

My big 'good' this year was that I traveled to England for a Jane Austen pilgrimage, something I'd wanted to do for a long time (sad fact: I was only able to go because Keegan was gone - he'd been too old to board for many years so I hadn't traveled in long time).

Not the sites where the adaptations were filmed, but some of the sites related to her - her grave and the house where she died in Winchester, her portrait at the National Portrait Gallery, her home in Chawton, for example. It was marvelous, everything I'd wanted and more, plus I received an exciting novel idea on the trip that I quickly outlined so that's waiting for me after I finish the current one. Can't wait! (If you'd like the posts about the trip, I just put up #3 of 4 here: Jane Austen Pilgrimage)

Here's her beautiful home, now a museum:

I also took a class there called Writing the Ideal Heroine, taught by Austen's great-great-great-great-great niece, Rebecca Smith. To read about the class and the exercises we did: Writing the Ideal Heroine.

The best part: I saw a Westie the first day of my trip, within one minute of walking out of my hotel so I knew Keegan approved. :)

Now it's time to create a personal theme for your writing life and/or goals in 2012!

Using what you've just written for reference, answer the following questions:

1) What have you put off or avoided this year related to your writing?  What's the next logical step you're not taking because it scares you? Because you have to put yourself out there?

Has your novel been ready to go but you haven't written the query letter so you can send it to agents?   After all, if it's still in a file on your computer, it can't be rejected, right? It's perpetually a work of genius. :)

Or you need a critique group but you don't know if you can take their critique or where to find a group or how to run it?

Or you have lots of notes but haven't actually written the book you say you want to write? You could also have notes for poems or poems that need revising but you just haven't gotten to it so there's no collection to send to contests.

2) Write about how you have been feeling in 2011 and choose how you want to feel about 2012. 

Has this year been all about frustration because you didn't have enough time to write? Disconnection because you haven't been writing or your critique group disbanded and you need a new one? Or you haven't been attending events in your writing community?

Maybe it's been a great year and you've had lots of success - you did most of what you wanted to do. In fact, you worked your ass off, but now you want to slow down, take some time to do research, or just write flash fiction, send out the work you've written rather than write something new for a bit, or catch up on books on craft and try the exercises.

3) What do you want more of in 2012?

Time to write. Recognition. Ideas that flow easily. Getting out of your own way and letting the story through. Opportunities to read your work.

4) What is something big that would blow your mind if it happened in 2012? Blue sky this - no limit.

Remember, writing related. So you could win the lottery, but a portion of the funds should go to you renting a house in Italy for a summer so you can write. That sort of thing.

I don't suggest the lottery, though, I suggest being less specific in that case and saying, "I receive funds that would allow me to rent a house in Italy for the summer so I can write." That way you're not limited to the lottery!

Reread what you've written and write down five key words that jump out at you. Perhaps you've written 'recognition' somewhere, 'community' or 'creativity.' I'm talking abstracts here, not 'novel' or 'conference' or 'critique group.'

Pick the words that excite you and/or make you nervous (that's really excitement masquerading as fear, our ego getting in the way).

You can either choose one of the five words that really resonates with you, that you instinctively know is what you should claim for 2012 by completing this sentence: 2012 is the Year of ___________,

OR write a sentence that encapsulates the theme: Recognition for my writing. Or: Connecting with a supportive writing community.

Write this on several pieces of paper or Post Its and put them where you can see them - wherever you write, one in your car, one on the bathroom mirror.  It might make you feel silly but do it anyway, at least for a few months.

This is NOT a resolution, it's a theme for your life in the next year. You are writing the story of your life every day. Keep this word or sentence in mind and make choices accordingly.

You might want to go a bit further and write down three things you can do in January to get started on honoring this theme. To get recognized you have to get out there, so maybe the list looks like this:

 - research and write query letter draft and give to writer friends to critique

- look for critique group (make a flier and put it up in libraries, the local Whole Foods, church if you     go to church. Post it on Craig's List, or in the forum of your state writer's association).

- enter one contest a month (Poets & Writers is a great resource for reputable contests: Poets & Writers - Contests and Grants).

If you can only get one completed, start the next in February. The point is to KEEP MOVING FORWARD with your theme in mind.

It shouldn't bore or annoy you to do it because hopefully you were very clear and picked what excited you. That excitement will give you momentum.

If it doesn't, do the exercise again. Perhaps you knew which word you should choose, but you chose another out of fear.

Choose the right one now.

You don't have to know how it will be supported. Just know that if you commit to it, it will.

I'd love to know your writing life/goal theme. Share it in the comments section.

Mine is EXPANSION.

When I thought of what that would look like, being a very visual person, I got a picture like this:

The universe - which seems appropriate somehow. Find a picture that symbolizes your theme and put that up instead of the word if that works better for you.

Keep what you've written for your 2012 theme where you can refer to it whenever you like for inspiration. And especially for next New Year's Eve, when you do the exercise again!

NOW WHAT?

BURN IT. In a SAFE place, fold the list you made of the goods and bads in 2011 to symbolize completing them, place them in the pot or ashtray and burn the list (or throw into a fire if one is handy - that's the safest way). If you can, feel grateful for all you learned, struggled with, and received.

DRINK IT IN. Next - hopefully you've brought your drink outside so it's handy - raise your glass to yourself, your next year of creativity, and say the word or sentence that symbolizes your theme.

Happy New Year!

Greek Out Your Sentence Structure

As writers we love language. We love the sound and texture and rhythm of words fitted together.

We get a visceral thrill, a little wordgasm, if you will, when we encounter the “best words in their best order,” as said by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (actually, the ‘best words’ applies to poetry. For prose he said ‘words in their best order’ but I think ‘best’ should apply to prose as well).

That's a lot of pressure when building sentences. So, first off, let me let you off the hook. That kind of building should be done in the revision process, not during the writing process.

I’m going to add technically here because the more familiar you are with various techniques, the more they will naturally slide into position at the appropriate moment during the writing process. You won’t have to dig for the tool later; it will present itself in the moment. But, for now, just write however it comes out and do the building later.

And so begins a series on sentences.

I want to start with the two types of sentences recognized by ancient Greek critics: periodic and loose.

In another post we’ll dive into some rhetorical devices with tongue twisting names like homeoteleuton or ones that sound like a illness like paronomasia. In the last post we’ll go into the sound, rhythm, texture idea (kennings and diction and polysyllabic words, Oh my!) and I'll give you some other fun sentences to try.

Yes, it’s important to try them, to make a mess of some and a triumph of others. In writing, as in everything else, we practice.

We’re starting with periodic because the great Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero  was considered the master of these. Okay, he’s Roman, not Greek, but he introduced Romans to Greek schools of philosophy and was a translator so…

Let’s hear a bit of what Cicero has to say about sentences (the translator was British, so note British spellings):

“But of sentences, there are as many different kinds as I have said there are of panegyrics. For if teaching, we want shrewd sentences; if aiming at giving pleasure, we want musical ones; if at exciting the feelings, dignified ones. But there is a certain arrangement of words which produces both harmony and smoothness; and different sentiments have different arrangements suitable to them… "

And another!

“For it is a fault in a sentence if anything is absurd, or foreign to the subject, or stupid, or trivial; and it is a fault of language if any thing is gross, or abject, or unsuitable, or harsh, or far-fetched." 

Guess he told us.

(By the way: Translated by English historian Charles Duke Yonge, Cicero’s preface to Orations of Demosthenes and Aeschines de Corona).

The Periodic Sentence

In Greek the name means “speech turned or guided to an end” (and there’s a metaphorical component – the idea of guiding a racehorse around a track with the start and finish in the same place).  It has a beginning, a turning point, and an end.  A purpose.

Components of a Periodic Sentence

• markers introducing subordinate phrases or clauses point ahead on the path. Signs prepare the reader for what lies ahead. Some markers used could be who, which, first, then, after, where
• expectations are set up and fulfilled
• reader should feel the appropriate end has been reached
• the thought of the sentence is not complete until the end

IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER:

When composing sentences, it’s the thought that drives the structure!

EXAMPLE:

Well, as you may imagine, this is not a popular device, but it’s one you can adapt. Perhaps, instead of having six or seven subordinate clauses and phrases (or more, trust me, there can be more) you only have two to three of them.

For example, a reason poets use this device, delaying the verb or the completion of the thought several lines, employing the rhetorical devices we’ll discuss in a later post (like anaphora), and building the idea, is to create tension and momentum that keep the reader reading.

Check it out - I just wrote a short periodic sentence right there using parallel phrases:  delaying, employing, building.

The payoff isn’t until the end of the sentence.  Why do poets use this device? To create tension and keep the reader reading. You have to get to the end of the sentence to find out.

It’s worth trying.  Learn to direct your reader through the sentence as if it is a channel of water flowing out into the larger paragraph of the sea….

Sorry. It just came over me.

I could tell you things like, “It’s the basic art form of the humanists” (Michael Baxandall, Giotto and the Orators, Oxford 1971 – Look! Citations! Fancy!) or that it was the “model for modern prose from the Renaissance onward” (Hardy Hansen, Greek Sentence Structure, City University of New York) to beef it up but I’m pretty sure you already hate me for making your brain hurt.

This is good hurt people. It makes you smarter, better, bolder, more skillful, more beautiful. Yeah, sentences can do that. Instead of suck it up I’m saying SOAK it up. Invent some new neural pathways.

Because I feel for you and want you to like me, I will give you an easy, short example.

It’s from Edward Gibbon's, "Memoirs of My Life." (Yes, he also who wrote "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." “Top of my reading list, for sure, Chris,” I can hear you snickering. But it should be.)

It’s one of the most famous periodic sentences written in English (I know, I know, SO exciting!):

Unprovided with original learning, uninformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved -- to write a book.

Take note of the device of repeating words with the prefix ‘un’ creating the same basic idea of lack and ignorance.

The technique has both elements of the rhetorical devices anaphora (starting phrases and clauses the same way) and parallel structure (ideas related to each other in parallel form, elements alike in meaning and function).

Now that wasn’t painful was it? I could have given you one from Samuel Johnson’s preface to his edition of Shakespeare. He uses "consolatory expedients" in it. I know you’re disappointed. But we must move on to…

The Loose Sentence!

Just hang on, this one’s easier.

The Greek for this means “speech strung together.” Think beads on a necklace. Statements follow one another without indicating another will be coming. The sentence ends in a place where it doesn’t matter. It could have ended earlier or later. It would make no difference. It lacks the beginning, turning point, and end.

EXAMPLE:

Well, what I just wrote above is an example. Here’s a more interesting one from Ernest Hemingway’s "The Sun Also Rises":

The bus climbed steadily up the road. The country was barren and rocks stuck up through the clay. There was no grass beside the road. Looking back we could see the country spread out below. Far back the fields were squares of green and brown on the hillsides. Making the horizon were the brown mountains. They were strangely shaped.

Got it?

Cause that’s it. Here, watch “Marcel The Shell With Shoes On” to clear your head. You did good.

(If you want to read a really long periodic sentence, it’s just past the video below. Dare you. Come on, it's Gogol. You know you love Gogol.)

From Nikolai Gogol’s famous short story, “The Overcoat”:

Even at those hours when the gray Petersburg sky is completely overcast and the whole population of clerks have dined and eaten their fill, each as best he can, according to the salary he receives and his personal tastes; when they are all resting after the scratching of pens and bustle of the office, their own necessary work and other people's, and all the tasks that an overzealous man voluntarily sets himself even beyond what is necessary; when the clerks are hastening to devote what is left of their time to pleasure; some more enterprising are flying to the theater, others to the street to spend their leisure staring at women's hats, some to spend the evening paying compliments to some attractive girl, the star of a little official circle, while some—and this is the most frequent of all—go simply to a fellow clerk's apartment on the third or fourth story, two little rooms with a hall or a kitchen, with some pretensions to style, with a lamp or some such article that has cost many sacrifices of dinners and excursions—at the time when all the clerks are scattered about the apartments of their friends, playing a stormy game of whist, sipping tea out of glasses, eating cheap biscuits, sucking in smoke from long pipes, telling, as the cards are dealt, some scandal that has floated down from higher circles, a pleasure which the Russian do never by any possibility deny himself, or, when there is nothing better to talk about, repeating the everlasting anecdote of the commanding officer who was told that the tail had been cut off the horse on the Falconet monument—in short, even when everyone, was eagerly seeking entertainment, Akaky Akakievich did not indulge in any amusement.

New Rules For Writers by Anis Shivani - Ignore Publicity, Shun Crowds, Refuse Recognition....

This is an awesome article. He's passionate and opinionated and I love it. I don't play these games and you shouldn't either - resist the machine!

From the opening:

"These "rules" totally go against every prescription for writing success you'll hear as a young writer from all quarters: the conformity-driven MFA system, the publishing industry's hype-machine, successful writers who act either like prima donnas or untouchable mystics, the marketing experts who seek to impose advertising rules on the writing product. Overpaid editors, illiterate agents, arrogant gatekeepers, and stupid reviewers want you to bargain away your soul for a pittance -- the bids in the market escalate downward, a reverse auction where you compete with the lowest of the low to be acknowledged as an entity that counts.

Why take part in the game at all? Who has ever come out of it alive, able to set up tent and build followers on the other side? Why not accept the reality that writers aren't forged in social harmony and peer input and obedient fellowship, but in a region where madmen and insomniacs find no comfort? To get you started on a regimen designed to pull you away from the mother-teat of the writing industry, here are the ten commandments..."

Read more.