When Deb and I were just beginning our relationship, we decided to try writing a book together. We came up with a plot and characters, and then I started writing a first draft, wherein Deb would trail along behind me by about a chapter, revising the work.
After a while, I noticed she could not abide …
Well, hold it here: how many readers are starting to nod and think they know where this is going? Everyone’s hand UP! It’s all about sentence construction, isn’t it? Short declarative sentences are the goal, the more complex forms are to be avoided as they can lead to confusion!
And … it’s boring.
Let me add a thought to this drab, watery mix: artists, by and large, are novelty seekers, from the lass who constructed a tent upon which she appliqued the names of every lover she’d had, to the guy who wrapped islands in plastic and called it art. From this I project they take inspiration for the communication of the obscure, or otherwise, impulses motivating their art.
Let’s poke this metaphor down the road to the next inn, which is the House of Datedness. Deb and I were talking about this the other day, but did not arrive at any definite conclusion: what makes something dated? I personally entertain two possibilities, one of which isn’t particularly germane as it refers to tangible objects (the essence of the thought being, if the materials used begin degrading without excess usage, then the object may be dated; think faded, warped plastic), but the second impinges on this conversation as it both provides a provisional definition and also casts a shadow at an operationality of interest. But let me approach this obliquely, reversing the flow of time:
Today’s dated fashion was yesterday’s exciting innovation.
Seems obvious, doesn’t it? But let’s reconsider – it’s only an assertion, not an explanation. So … what makes a fashion dated? I suggest that a fashion, an intellectual concept, may, to take a concept from mathematics (dangerous, that, skirling near the edge of tolerance of some beloved readers), contain a countable number of interesting perturbations, or an infinity (countable or not) of interesting perturbations. The former, when their ways are exhausted, become … dated. We’ve seen them all, or at any rate, the interesting variants. The latter, while sometimes resulting in resemblance, don’t seem to become dated; the variations are infinite, if you’ll excuse the repetition, and, in a good fashion, attractive to the human mind.
If you’ve persevered this far, your mind may be prepared: hence the thesis, that there are fashions in writing, and a literary fashion can be countable. Thus, genres; thus, dead genres. But let’s deconstruct this to the title of this post, Sentence Construction. Today’s fashion is the short, declarative sentence: get to the point. So … sentences can be used for many purposes: describing a scene, conveying a fact, conveying a falsehood as a fact (just exploring a crack, there) … sprinkle in a few more, and let’s end with conveying someone’s mental state.
We use font changes as a dull bludgeon: here! pay attention! I’m saying something important! But this is not always available, and, as suggested, it has the exactitude of a fire axe. Not to put too fine a point on it. But. as a writer, particularly during the fictional tome of earlier mention, I find myself considering what I’m writing and why I’m writing it; I’m trying to convey a thought of possibly some delicacy; not in the old-fashioned sense that someone’s powdering their nose (although, a visual of John Wayne applying a spot of powder over the sink is a trifle intriguing), but in that attempt to really elicit in the reader a reaction, whether an intellectual trembling, or a feeling, or something far more primal.
And today’s writing works against this. We write in short, declarative sentences. We restrict ourselves to verbs and adjectives found in common discourse. The readers may run in fright if faced with an unfamiliar word, unless, of course, it’s newly constructed: verbing a noun, for instance. Yes? Our bricks of communications are our sentences, but whereas an unusual brick may cause a crisis in a house, we need to consider the results of using a dull brick in our communications:
Our communications become dull.
The readers eyes skip along, pattern matching sentences, assigning meanings based on partial readings, skimming and … maybe they lose the thread. How many font changes can I introduce, can emoticons help my cause? Not really; they are cheap theatrics.
Normal bricks are necessary, even in creative writing. But when it comes to making an important point, I find I closely examine the writing leading up to it and begin to wonder, Does the reader realize something important is happening? An analogy to music employed in TV and movies comes to mind, which I will let the interested reader pursue, as the point here is how to achieve a similar effect using mere words. To continue the main path, I discover myself rewording: changing the arrow of time by stating result, and then cause. Combing opposite words, which the reader might reject initially, to initiate a thought sequence. Using a complex sentence, not because I’m in a hurry and disdain the backspace key, but to lead the reader’s mind down a path, to show them forks in that path, to prime their mind for what’s to come by associating deliberately selected concepts as closely as I can, to oppose them in selected ways to evoke feelings, reactions, deductions, conclusions). Make them go back and reread carefully, because none of the patterns are matching.
And then word selection, perhaps the most common subject: short words when rapid action is occurring; but permitting the luxury of words which may currently be out of favor otherwise: not only does it bring a flavor of exoticity (although exoticity itself is, no doubt, a sad overreach), which some, such as Hemingway, might disdain, but to recall that a synonym doesn’t necessarily mean precisely the same, but brings a flavor to a meaning unavailable in the original, or any other synonym. Selection of key words to make the reader think, opposing them to get the readers’ attention, and building a path of concepts: Sentence Construction.
Knowing when to use them, that’s the key, now isn’t it? I once told my sister that I don’t analyze, I zen. That’s what I have to do when I write in order to get close to communicating.
And, yet, this is all done against the canvas, if you will, of current writing: today’s newspapers, journals, magazines, blogs, and graffiti. What I have just advocated will, if it were taken seriously, become … dated. And then we’ll start swinging back to the short, declarative sentences because they are more effective.
And why? Because, as this entry just made clear, novelty gets the attention of the reader. Not only of subject, but of medium. And novelty is defined by context, and our context is time, canvas, and a thousand million fingers, tapping away …
And why do I blog? To get this crap out of my mind and onto a plate, where it can be a big steaming pile of …
(Complaints concerning my command of grammar are commended to the trash can; I have never been able to diagram a sentence, and have always had trouble distinguishing an object from a subject.)
(Exotic word choices and sentence rhythms inspired by Jack Vance, 1916 – 2013. There’s a reason I reread him more than any other writer. Someone aspirate the reason for me.)
