Today I went to my internship at a small but mighty publishing company, a place I love for its location within a building for artists and for its old-fashioned printing presses that are still used with honor and love, and as usual I felt a certain pride and excitement at being involved in "the process"--that magical germination of a manuscript from slush pile to bestseller. Granted-I mostly see the slush, and very rarely does a gem make it all the way to bestseller, but nonetheless--I honor my craft and I love the editorial journey. I thrill to examine manuscripts and determine what exactly would make it work, make it great, and make it sell.
Except today was different. Today I looked at the introductory pages of a work already well on its journey to publication and I was disappointed. There were many spectacular and brilliant aspects of this text, but for me the point of view was arbitrary and irritating. This is a subject I could ramble on and on about in a boring way for many paragraphs and it would probably matter only to me, and so I jump to a far more fascinating topic: sentence length, the subject of irritation for the other intern on duty. And of course, given the topic of all of my blogs, I must address one more topic: love.
(Hah! You think--how will she pull this off? A blog about sentence length and love? Just watch.)
Yes- LOVE and SENTENCE LENGTH. Here goes:
[the following is a play depicting the conversation about sentence length I had with Fellow Intern... the love comes later, in the third or fourth act]
ACT 1. Picture two erudite interns sipping caffeinated beverages. Neither wants to admit they are dismayed by the manuscript they are reading.
Intern me: So, what do you think?
Fellow intern: I'm not sure I even want to say right now.
Intern me: Yeah.
ACT 2. The plot thickens--the two interns begin to discuss language and semantics and syntax. Whoo-hoo!
Fellow intern: I'm reserving my judgement, but the language of a story is so important to me and there's just nothing happening so far in this work.
(to the author's credit, an author probably pulitzer-prize bound, we are only 26 pages in, and we're interns... what do we know?)
Intern me: Well, for me, it's the POV that is a problem. I felt like the language was ok; the sentence structure at least was engaging. The pace increased at times of action, you know, when the sentences stretched on and on forever, no periods in sight.
Fellow intern: Sure... I can see that, but it's just such an old trick, you know?
ACT 3. Stop. The actors on stage freeze and the lights begin to swirl. The phrase "old trick" echoes through the theater. As the audience, here's where you think about the words old trick and interject an interpretive dance scene of your choice. Think of a love triangle between writer, content, and form. Feel free to dress interns up in masks and feathered attire if you feel you must.
ACT 4. Here's where the action slows just a little, in Shakespearean tradition.
Intern me: Sure. Huh. Old trick? Hmm... Internal rumination occurs.
ACT 5. The dramatic conclusion! Brace yourself!
Intern me: Well, I'm outta here. Have a good afternoon!
Fellow intern: Ok. See ya. She smiles cheerfully.
*****
Ok, before the tomatoes start landing on stage, let me, as director explain that the most dramatic action, of course, happened off stage, in my mind, as I started thinking about old tricks and sentence length and love.
See, here's the deal-- sure, any writer can do what this writer did, let a sentence run on and on without a period in order to emphasize the drama and tension of the scene, such as a young boy getting beat up by resident gang members. The run-on sentence serves to enhance tension, suspense, fear, urgency, and horror. But is it done as a trick? Because it has been done before is it just a routine card trick? Is it just a tired old rabbit popping out of a hat, red-eyed from partying the night before?
True, any writer could use this technique. In fact, I could teach my Pre-AP 9th graders to use just such a trick. We could have a mini-lesson and workshop the idea in partners, and then individually they could imitate this "trick" in their own work. But here's the thing--all of the 109 9th graders in my charge will achieve a run-on paragraph; only 3-5 of them will give me chills. Those 3-5 kids who do it right aren't just on stage showing us a trick; they are performing magic.
I use the "trick" of run-on sentences myself. I like to think when I do I'm not using it as a trick. As writers we need to address the theory of our craft and acknowledge the responsibility as artists to push on the edges of what has already been established. We need to explore language; paint lexicon; play on the jungle gym of syllables and letters that make up our discourse. We need to avoid falling into common patterns; we need to avoid relying on "tricks".
At the same time, like staring at one of those magic pictures, we need to keep a trance-like gaze on our content and let the content dictate our form. If the content calls, truly, for a run-on-no-period-paragraph, it will let us know. It will demand it from us, authentically, and it won't feel like a trick to the reader.
This is the kind of love I'm talking about today: love for our stories, love for the amazing gift language is. And it is a kind of love that means relaxing the brain and letting go and feeling the story rise out of the page in whatever length sentences it desires, waiting only for our pen to add ink to its letters.
And of course, love between people must be like this too. Love must be relaxing the mind and letting the story unfold as it will.
(See? Told ya. Sentence length and Love. What now?! Yeah, that's what I thought.)
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