Episode 201 - A formula for strong sentences.

Welcome novel and short story writers to a new episode on writing fiction. This is Jim Thayer. When I was 12 or 13 years old, I memorized four reasons lost in time. Albert Einstein's famous equation E equals MC squared. The energy equivalent of a quantity of matter is the mass of that quantity multiplied by the speed of light squared. I have carried this formula in my head for decades. I have almost no understanding of what it means, but I know the formula. And I've always enjoyed knowing the formula. I want to suggest a writing formula today. Writing isn't physics, but some formulas apply. Here's a formula showing is usually better than telling. Here's another formula. Don't put back story in the first pages of your novel. I want to suggest a formula for forceful sentences. We want our sentences to demand attention from the reader to have force, to clearly convey to the reader what's going on in our story. Here is a formula for strong sentences. Specific subject, strong verb, few modifiers, short, active. Not for every sentence, of course, but for the majority. And we think formula for something is varied and sometimes as wild as fiction. Sure, you bet. Let me read the formula again. There are five elements in this formula. First, the specific subject. You've heard me say that details should be specific, definite, and concrete. Those are strong and white's words in their influential text elements of style. Strong and white were talking about the importance of detail. I think they mean a couple of things. First, we fiction writers should try to avoid subjects that can be vague. In grammar, the subject of a sentence is the word that tells who or what the sentence is about. In the sentence, Lisa laughed, Lisa is the subject. In the sentence, the cat meowed, the cat is the subject. Some nouns that might be used as the subject of a sentence don't have much punch. Words like the framework, perspective, issue, structure, initiative, support, engagement. These words have meaning, but it's a vague, bureaucratic, corporate, quarterly report meaning. Compare them with specific nouns, camel, cliff, finger, saddle, salmon, brick, ear. These words, unlike the nouns, issue and engagement, bring up an image for the reader. They have pop. And the second thing specific, definite and concrete means regarding the subject of our sentence is to pair down the subject. The word flowers is okay, but the phrase tulips and roses is a specific image. Instead of dog being the subject of the sentence, try downmation or boxer or pecanese. The word ship is fine, but bulk, carrier, or tugboat is more specific. Weapon is a broad noun. A better subject for our sentence would be 30-06 or revolver or shotgun. So we can often simplify and pair down the subject noun of our sentence. That's the subject part of a formula. Here is the verb part. A verb is a word, as you know, that expresses an action or occurrence. Just as there is strong paper, such as waxed paper, and weak paper, such as tissue paper, there are strong and weak verbs. Strong verbs usually portray a specific action, run, jump, smash, hug, shoot, chew, weak verbs, often are generic, such as have, get, go, make, and usually they don't offer an image. Move and go aren't a specific image such as run. And writers often modify weak verbs with an adverb, because the verb is weak, such as quickly move, instead of run, or quickly take, instead of grab. Week verbs can't be avoided all of the time, but we can give them some thought and maybe come up with a strong verb, a solid image of action for the reader. The next part of the formula is few modifiers. Being few modifiers is a well-known and important technique in crafting a sentence. These are adverbs, which modify verbs, and adjectives, which modify nouns. In this sentence, the gold-colored horse ran quickly. Gold color is an adjective, and quickly is an adverb. Regarding modifiers, Stephen King said, adverbs are not your friend. And Mark Twain said, when you catch an adjective, kill it. The key is to avoiding these modifiers is to find the right word in the first place. Instead of gold-colored horse, we should try Palomino instead of ran quickly. We should write galloped. I think this is right. We can get better at using few modifiers. When we start doing it, we'll get better at it. And as sometimes soon, it'll become our default way of writing. We shouldn't avoid all modifiers, but many, maybe most, can be avoided, and we can get practiced at avoiding them. Our formula is specific subject, strong verb, few modifiers, short and active. Mark means what, short. Many, maybe most of our sentences, should be on the short side. In William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury, the average sentence length is 40 to 50 words, and many sentences have 100 words. That was his style, and it worked magnificently, but I'm not William Faulkner, and you may not be either. Shorter sentences are probably stronger for us, 5 to 12 words, sometimes 3 words. The reason is this, shorter sentences are easier to understand. Short sentences are like a drum, they have a beat, and some punch. Short sentences are a strong way to create a feeling of speed or momentum, and can add tension to a scene. Not all our sentences should be short, of course. Consider mixing them up for a nice rhythm and a change texture, but many of our sentences should be on the short side. And the last element of the formula is active. An active sentence is where the subject of the sentence acts. Susan through the ball is an active sentence. Susan is the subject of the sentence. She acts. She throws. A passive sentence is where the subject of the sentence is acted upon. The ball was thrown by Susan. In this version, the subject of the sentence is ball, and it is being acted upon. It's being thrown. Most of our sentences should be active. They are easier to understand, and they have more energy, and they're usually shorter than passive sentences. Not all of them, but by far most should be active. So this has been a formula for forceful sentences. We should try to grab the reader with our sentences, and this formula will help. One of the best ways to learn about writing is to read good writing. To see what the writer is doing, when we read a good novel, or a good chapter, or even a good page, one that engages us as a reader, we can ask, "Why is this so good? What is the writer doing?" It's a powerful way to learn to write. Here's another formula today. When describing settings or characters, give the reader something to look at, and something to wonder about. I'd like to offer some terrific examples of authors filling up the reader's minds, offering the readers new worlds regarding characters and settings. They do so with details. You heard me say that the details we add to the scene should be specific, definite, and concrete. I just mentioned that a moment ago. A detail is specific, definite, and concrete when it appeals to the senses. It should be seen, heard, smelled, tasted, or touched. John Gardner, in the Art of Fiction, speaks of details as proofs, rather like those in a geometry theorem. Novelist Jack Hodgons asks us writers, "Have you chosen specific and concrete words throughout aware of their sounds and rhythms and connotations, as well as all their dictionary meanings?" Our formula, "Give readers something to look at, and something to wonder about." Let's see how the masters do it. First regarding several setting descriptions, and then about several character descriptions. Here is from Truman Capote's 1949 novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms. Noon City is not much to look at. There is only one street, and on it are located a general merchandise store, a repair shop, a small building which contains two offices, one lodging a lawyer, the other a doctor, a combination barber shop beauty parlor that is run by a one-armed man and his wife, and a curious, indefinable establishment known as RV Lacey's Printsley Place, where a Texaco gasoline pump stands under a portico. These buildings are grouped so closely together that they seem to form a ramshackle palace haphazardly thrown together overnight by a half-wit carpenter. Now across the road in isolation stand two other structures, a jail and a tall, queer-toddering ginger-colored house. This from Truman Capote has things to look at, a ramshackle palace of buildings, and there are things to wonder about, a one-armed man. Skipping a few lines, the windows of the house are cracked and shattered, hollowed as eyeless sockets, a rotted balcony leans perilously forward, and yellow sunflower birds hide their nests in its secret places. The scaling outer walls are ragged with torn weather-faded posters that flutter when there is a wind. Among the town kids it is a sign of great valor to enter these black rooms after dark and signal with a match flame from a window in the topmost floor. Here from Truman Capote there are things to look at, a rotted balcony and fluttering posters and there are things to wonder about, the kids lighting matches up in the windows. Here's another example of a setting from Jean Shepard in his Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories, and this is a setting of a restaurant called the Red Rooster. A giant red neon rooster with a blue neon tail that flicked up and down in the rain set the tone for this glamorous establishment. An aura of undefined sin was always connected with the name Red Rooster. Slywinks, nudgings, and adolescent cackling about what purportedly went on at the rooster made it the in-spot for such a momentous revel. The decor ran heavily to red-checkered oil cloth, oil cloth table covers and plastic violets, and the musical background was provided by a legendary jukebox that stood a full seven feet high featuring red and blue cascading waterfalls that gushed endlessly through its voluptuous facade. In full 200 watt operation, it could be felt if not clearly heard as far north as Gary and as far south as Kankakey, a triumph of American aesthetics. Here from Jean Shepard, there's things to look at, a giant red neon rooster and a seven-foot high jukebox with red and blue cascading waterfalls, what a description. Here is another setting description from Truman Capote's novel, Other Voices Other Rooms. It was his first novel. They turned the corner by the jail, and there was the stable, a barn-like structure of faded red which Joel had noticed earlier in the day. A number of men who looked like a gang of desperados in a western picture show were congregated near the hitching post, passing a whiskey bottle from hand to hand. A second group, less boisterous, played a game with a jackknife under a dark area of an oak tree. Swarms of dragonflies quivered above a slime-coated water trough and a scabby hound dog padded back and forth, sniffing the bellies of tied-up mules. One of the whiskey drinkers, an old man with long white hair and a long white beard, was feeling pretty good evidently, for he was clapping his hands and doing a little shuffle dance to a tune that was probably singing in his head. Here we have things to look at. The men passing a whiskey bottle around a game with a jackknife, a scabby hound dog, smelling the bellies of tied-up mules, and we wonder what is going on here. And here is, from Thomas Mann's novel, Confessions of Felix Crawl Confedered's Man, listened to Thomas Mann work for us readers. It was a narrow room with a rather high ceiling and crowded from floor to ceilings with goodies. There were rows and rows of hams and sausages of all shapes and colors, white yellow, red and black, fat and lean and round and long, rows of canned preserves, cocoa and tea, bright, translucent glass bottles of honey, marmalade and jam, I stood enchanted, straining my ears and breathing in the delightful atmosphere and the mixed fragrance of chocolate and smoked fish and earthy truffles. I spoke into the silence, saying, "Good day, in quite a loud voice. I can still remember how my strained, unnatural tones died away in the stillness," no one answered. And my mouth literally began to water like a spring. One quick, noiseless step, and I was beside one of the laden tables. I made one rapturous grab into the nearest glass-earned, filled as it chanced with chocolate themes, slipped a fistful into my coat pocket, then reached the door, and in the next second was safely round the corner. That's from Thomas Mann. This setting description has everything, things to look at, smell, touch, taste and feel. It's one of my favorite descriptions of a setting. It's one of the best I've ever come across. I wish I were there in this room with all of the goodies. Let's turn from settings to character description, where the same techniques, specific definite and concrete apply, and where writers can give readers something to look at and something to wonder about. Here is, again, Truman Capote and other voices in other rooms, describing a character. Why hello, little one, boomed a muscular woman who immediately strode forward and propped her elbows on the counter before him. She had long, ape-like arms that were covered with dark fuzz, and there was a wart on her chin, and decorating this wart was a single antenna-like hair. A peach silk-blow sagged under the weight of her enormous breasts. A zany light sparkled in the red rim dyes she focused on him. Welcome to Miss Roberta's, two of her dirty-nailed fingers reached out to give this cheek a painful pinch. Things to look at, a muscular woman with ape-like arms, things to wonder about, though the wart on her chin. Here's another example. This is from Truman Capote, the description of Idebel Tompkins in other voices other rooms. Here's Capote, again, working for us. Suddenly the door swung open. The skinny girl with fiery chopped-off red hair swaggered inside, and stopped dead still. Her hands cocked on her hips. Her face was flat and rather impertinent. A network, a network of bug-ugly freckles, spanned her nose. Her eyes, squinty and bright, green, moved swiftly from face to face, but showed none, none a sign of recognition. Here we look at this fiery chopped-off red hair and her bug-ugly freckles, and we wonder, why is she swaggering? What about her makes her swagger like that? Here is our listener, Laura, in Switzerland, sent this description of Mr. Laurie from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities." I'm glad she did. I don't recall this description. By that time there was only one adventurous traveler left to be congratulated for the two others had been set down at their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity was rather like a larger dog kennel. Mr. Laurie, the passenger, shaking himself out in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog. After that morning, after Mr. Laurie has washed up Dickens' rights, very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee and a loud watch ticking, a sonorous sermon under his flapped waistcoat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and effinescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg and was a little vein of it for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close and were of a fine texture, his shoes and buckles too, though plain were trim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head, which wig it is to be presumed was made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighboring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and quieted was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist, bright eyes that it must have cost their owner in years gone by, some pains to drill the composed and reserved expression of Telsen's bank. He had a healthy color in his cheeks and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety, but perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Telsen's bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people, and perhaps secondhand cares like secondhand clothes come easily off and on. That's Charles Dickens. He paints this wonderful picture of Mr. Laurie with his funny wig which might be made of hair or which might be made of silk or glass. Here is Arthur Conan Doyle's description of fattiest shoulder in the sign of the four. It's one of my favorite descriptions I've ever come across. A blaze of yellow light streamed out upon us, and in the center of the glare there stood a small man with a very high head, a bristle of red hair all round the fringes of it, and a bald, shining scalp which shot out from among it like a mountain peak from fur trees. He rived his hands together as he stood, and his features were in a perpetual jerk, now smiling, now scowling, but never for an instant in repose. Nature had given him a pendulous lip, and a two visible line of yellow and irregular teeth which he strove feebly to conceal by constantly passing his hand over the lower part of his face. In spite of his obtrusive baldness, he gave the impression of youth. One point of fact he had just turned his 30th year, isn't that a fabulous description of this man who we see his teeth and his baldness, and we wonder why does he constantly rive his hands together? Why is he so obsequious? Here is one last one. This is the description of Merlin from T. H. Whites, the once-in-future king. He was dressed in a flowing gown with fur tippets which had the signs of the zodiac embroidered over it, with various cabalistic signs such as triangles with eyes in them, queer crosses, leaves of trees, bones of birds and animals, and a planetarium whose stars shone like bits of looking glass with the sun on them. He had a pointed hat, like a dunce's cap, or like the headgear worn by ladies of that time, except that the ladies were accustomed to have a bit of veil floating from the top of it. He also had a want of ligman vishai, which had laid down in the grass beside him, and a pair of horned rimmed spectacles like those of King Pelinor. They were unusual spectacles being without earpieces, but shaped rather like scissors, or like the antenna of the tarantula wasp. Merlin had a long white beard and long white mustache which hung down on either side of it. Close inspection showed that he was far from clean. It was not that he had dirty fingernails or anything like that, but some large bird seemed to have been nesting in his hair. The old man was streaked with droppings over his shoulders, among the stars and triangles of his gown, and a large spider was slowly lowering itself from the tip of his hat as he gazed and slowly blinked at the little boy in front of him, skipping a few lines. His mild blue eyes, very big and round under the tarantula spectacles, gradually filmed and clouded over as he gazed at the boy, and then he turned his head away with a resigned expression as though it was all too much for him after all. That's T.S. White. What's to look at? Everything. What's to wonder about? Everything. A spider descending from the rim of his hat, a bird nesting in his hair. Notice the similarities in all these descriptions of settings and characters. They give the reader something interesting to look at and wonder about. They aren't default descriptions. These deservedly famous writers have worked to entertain the reader. It's a lesson for us writers. And another thing. When we read wonderful writing like this, we get enthused about our craft. I sure do if Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle and T.H. White and Truman Capote can weave magic out of words we can too. Earlier today I mentioned that I had learned Einstein's formula. I learned something else, and this was when I was five or six years old. My mother announced she could say the alphabet backwards, and she did so. I was remarkably impressed that very day. I memorized the backward alphabet. My mom helped, and I can still say it. I won't burden you with it. But for some reason I get a lot of satisfaction knowing I can do it. I hope you have a couple little things like that in your life. We come to the end of the episode today. I'm glad we work together for it. This is Jim Thayer. I'll see you next time, and until then, please keep capping those keys.