The Writing Night /#1
Subjects & Verbs
Let’s see. I suppose, it is time for me to sort out my writing. Doing it publicly might not be the brightest idea, nevertheless, one must never fear a constructive critique. On the other hand, I might receive some warm support, is not that right? You tell me!
I decided to start this series as a petite side project, diverging from the general course of my Medim hustle. Doing it here, in a community of people with a similar (or the same) direction in life and concurring interests, I hope, will benefit whoever this post gets to besides me. This is not a motivational project — to explicate, that is not the main aim. The GREAT INTENTION is to review all of the small and monstrously big aspects of my writing, which I often forget about or use incorrectly. Hell yeah! That happens on occasion. English is not my mother tongue, which only complicates the process and often irritates me when I know that the ‘perfect’, ‘irreplaceable’, direct translation would sound like a load of cr*p.
Last year I read several works on ‘writing’. That is the kind of literature, as one could address it, which so commonly misleads you into thinking that you will master whatever skill is stated on the cover. Analogically, you may think that you find some “centuries-lost knowledge” inside. No, that would not be the case. What you can look forward to, nonetheless, are practical tips and strategies with proof of historical use, supported by various literate examples. Accordingly, I had to run research before acquiring any literature of such kind. I filtered out the options and soon enough received what was left on the list from a very nice delivery guy.
That is, dear Reader, the background story of the book and the author I dedicate this series to — ‘Writing Tools’ by Roy Peter Clark. You may also know R. P. Clark by his other books — ‘The Glamour of Grammar’, ‘How to Write Short’, and ‘The Art of X-Ray Reading’. I searched through the annals of Medium and curiously R. P. Clark appears there only rarely, mostly being the subject of a comment. Since I loved the book — Clark enters the topic very smoothly and talks about all the pivotal details with the highest diligence, and that is how I would describe his writing style in general—, I decided to dedicate my time to it and refresh all of the advices Clark gives to his readers / students in my own head….but this time with an audience.
Let me not test your patience anymore and get right into it!
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The first piece of advice coming up in Clark’s book relates to the structure of your sentences. In the future, we will see that this is far from being the only technique aimed at improving the overall assembly, consistency, and fluency of your composition. In its essence, it is as simple as following the order of colours on a traffic light. However, when drafting, one may pay less attention to the position of pivotal sentence elements (sometimes, to say, it is what drives our creativity), and hence, risks for her/his sentence(s) to come out weaker, failing the initial potential. The Author advises us to utilise the natural flow of the English sentence — the one developing from left to right, also called a ‘right-branching sentence’. My latter sentence is a good example of that (see subject in BOLD and verb in ITALICS)!
Allen Ginsberg once wrote in his personal journal these astonishing lines:
“The poet becomes a seer through a long, immense, and reasoned derangement of all the senses… He searches himself, he exhausts all poisons in himself, to keep only the quintessence …”
You guessed it right. Another outstanding representative of a right-branching sentence with the subject and the verb taking prior positions.
Some of you could already point out that such a repetitive approach to building your sentences can also lead to them being overly homogeneous, again, losing their narration power. ‘Worry be not’, Clark tells us and presents with an example of Steinbeck’s work, an excerpt from ‘Cannery Row’. This time, however, something changes:
In the dawn he awakened, looked out through the windshield and saw that the water was already retreating down the bouldery flat. … On the bottoms lie the incredible refuse of the sea, shells broken and chipped and bits of skeletons, claws, the whole sea bottom a fantastic cemetery on which the living scamper and scramble.
Clark suggests that introductory phrases can be a salvation for some of the cases when a right-branching sentence dominates the whole structure. Moreover, Steinbeck masterfully changes the lengths of his sentences, and therefore, protects his Reader from falling into monotony and fuzziness.
Another and the last trick, which is commonly used in prose, for many authors love longer portrayal of their characters/scenes, and which can unburden heavily systematised writing, is presented in this sentence — the subject gets separated from its betrothed verb for a shorter or longer time (depending on your readiness and skill to uphold the tension, and your courage to keep the Reader away from the sacred, desired second half of the sentence construct). Just remember — approach every sentence with care and accuracy, especially on the stage of editing.
A SUMMARY OF THE CORE:
- aim to utilise sentence composition with subject and verb at the beginning (i.e., the ‘right-branching sentence’)
- avoid monotony by including occasional brief introductory phrases/words and by varying the length of the sentences
- subject and verb of the main clause can be left until later if suspense or tension is to be built
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Спасибо большое за прочтение! Do not mind me. Just practicing my Russian here. ;)
As declared in ‘The Writing Night / #1’, this series of writing is dedicated to the work of Roy Peter Clark — ‘Writing Tools’. All content taken from the book serves only as illustrative, for the general understanding of all the concepts R. P. Clark introduces in his book, including direct or/and indirect quotes, examples, and techniques themselves, unless stated otherwise (i.e., another source is declared/provided). Please, remember that this series exists all together with my subjective understanding of R. P. Clark’s work, therefore, the message or the emphasis of what you see in his book and what I state in my blog may differ.
Finally, I recommend every one of my readers get a copy of the book. It can sit on your shelf as long as needed, waiting for the moment you need a reminder on one or the other TOOL for ‘good writing’.
