Hal Duncan on How to Write a Sentence
Feb. 29th, 2012 09:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ann_leckieYour assigned reading for the day!
I've posted a few times about things like word choice, and information flow. Duncan's post is addressing those, and a few other things, but they're all things that are sort of...part of each other.
Anyone still working to get out of slush, trying to figure out why you aren't selling at all, or why you aren't getting past slushreaders, read what he's got to say and ponder it. Meditate on it daily. What he says is invaluable, and true.
I do want to kind of amplify something he touches on--the question of efficiency, or removing anything "unnecessary." A lot of people spend time paring anything away from the sentence that can be pared and still have something comprehensible or "grammatically correct"*
That "cut everything unnecessary" is absolutely true, but "necessary" isn't just a function of grammar. In fiction "efficient" isn't just about sentences that have everything they need to be informative and grammatical and no more. It's a much, much more complicated issue than that. When you're writing fiction, anything you need to achieve your effect is necessary. That might be a long string of adverbs. Or passive voice. Or sentence fragments, or a sentence two pages long with a zillion nested clauses. Who knows? Only you do. And then only if you've got the tools to see that yes, that's exactly what you need.**
Go read it.
_____
*"Grammatically correct" is a much, much more complicated issue than many elementary school English teachers seem to realize. Do not make me rant by speaking to me of avoiding singular they, or ending sentences with prepositions, or how one should never use passive voice (defined as something that is, in fact, emphatically not passive voice). If you find prescriptive pedanticism tempting, go read Language Log for a few months.
**Really, honestly, that's hardly ever exactly what you need. It's probably good policy to think long and hard before you do something like that. Still, it's possible it'll have the effect you want, and that's when "rules" about adverbs--or anything else--not only won't help you, they'll actively hurt you. THERE ARE NO RULES. There are only choices that produce (or fail to produce) various effects. Forget about rules. Make the choices that will give you the results you're after. As Hal says, don't just pull things off the shelf and call it okay because it doesn't break any "rules." Think about all your various choices, and what you want the sentence to do, and then decide.
I've posted a few times about things like word choice, and information flow. Duncan's post is addressing those, and a few other things, but they're all things that are sort of...part of each other.
Anyone still working to get out of slush, trying to figure out why you aren't selling at all, or why you aren't getting past slushreaders, read what he's got to say and ponder it. Meditate on it daily. What he says is invaluable, and true.
I do want to kind of amplify something he touches on--the question of efficiency, or removing anything "unnecessary." A lot of people spend time paring anything away from the sentence that can be pared and still have something comprehensible or "grammatically correct"*
That "cut everything unnecessary" is absolutely true, but "necessary" isn't just a function of grammar. In fiction "efficient" isn't just about sentences that have everything they need to be informative and grammatical and no more. It's a much, much more complicated issue than that. When you're writing fiction, anything you need to achieve your effect is necessary. That might be a long string of adverbs. Or passive voice. Or sentence fragments, or a sentence two pages long with a zillion nested clauses. Who knows? Only you do. And then only if you've got the tools to see that yes, that's exactly what you need.**
Where a sentence of basic prose is purposed to communicate, a sentence of narrative is purposed to conjure.
Go read it.
_____
*"Grammatically correct" is a much, much more complicated issue than many elementary school English teachers seem to realize. Do not make me rant by speaking to me of avoiding singular they, or ending sentences with prepositions, or how one should never use passive voice (defined as something that is, in fact, emphatically not passive voice). If you find prescriptive pedanticism tempting, go read Language Log for a few months.
**Really, honestly, that's hardly ever exactly what you need. It's probably good policy to think long and hard before you do something like that. Still, it's possible it'll have the effect you want, and that's when "rules" about adverbs--or anything else--not only won't help you, they'll actively hurt you. THERE ARE NO RULES. There are only choices that produce (or fail to produce) various effects. Forget about rules. Make the choices that will give you the results you're after. As Hal says, don't just pull things off the shelf and call it okay because it doesn't break any "rules." Think about all your various choices, and what you want the sentence to do, and then decide.
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no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 05:50 pm (UTC)I like your final paragraph here. There *are* times when flowery language or a leisurely pace is what you want--if you're trying to conjure a nineteenth-century feeling, for example.
no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 05:53 pm (UTC)Fact, I wouldn't have gone for "rippling muscles" either, but I guess starting with that particular sentence, you're mostly stuck with that, and that's part of why in the end it's vastly improved, but not "wow, what a sentence."
no subject
Date: 2012-02-29 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-01 01:49 am (UTC)