Bibliopath #28: In which we join the sentence hunt
Dear reader,
Consider this topic sentence, from Dorothy Dunnett, who should be more widely considered the greatest historical novelist of all time:
"It had been a sharp night; but now the early sun, glaring cross-grained through the branches, laid fresh black contours, thinly prowling, over the people below."
This comes from Queen's Play, book two of the Lymond Chronicles. Amongst other things, Dunnett is an impeccable stylist, and to be honest, this isn't even the best sentence from my notes.* But I thought it might be instructional in how we can move from an average sentence to a great sentence in a few thoughtful moves.
This sentence is a scene-setting sentence, establishing our setting at a hunt that is about to begin. However, the hunt will also contain various feints and thrusts of some of the political figures involved in it.
A first attempt at such a sentence might go: "It had been a cool night, but now the dawn sun was shining through the trees over the people below." Not bad, but nothing to write home, or indeed a newsletter, about.
Not bad, but the first step to rescue this sentence is to look out for cliches, turns of phrase that are tired or worn from overuse. Dunnett chooses "sharp night", and for the sun to be "glaring". Neither are completely original, but both also have helpful connotations for our scene—"sharp" hints at the edges of intrigue, "glaring" hints at an atmosphere of mistrust.
So: "It had been a sharp night; but now the dawn sun was glaring through the trees over the people below."
Slightly better, and our main verb is stronger. But how can we further hint at that unease?
What Dunnett does is is to bring that detail of the trees into the fore: what does it actually look like when the sun shines through branches? Something like this:
"It had been a sharp night; but now the dawn sun, glaring cross-grained through the branches, laid fresh black contours over the people below."
"Cross-grained" and "fresh black contours" are immediately descriptive phrases, fresh ways of helping us see what we've all seen before.
And then one more, an adjectival phrase, like the garnish on the meal:
"It had been a sharp night; but now the early sun, glaring cross-grained through the branches, laid fresh black contours, thinly prowling, over the people below."
"Thinly prowling" makes those branches waver in our mind's eye, and adds, just a little more, to our sense of unease.
This is not to say any of this is easy, but that is the work of writing: to consider the details, and to select those that add up to the full sentence that you want to convey.
Short note: Bibliopath is going to take a break for Christmas. I'll see you in the new year, maybe with a few changes in hand. If you love someone this season, buy them a book! (And if you need any recommendations, let me know.)
Happy hunting,
Guan
*eg: "And in the face of this she must move correctly, with haughtiness and with splendour through the excessive and appalling round of ceremony that had been prepared for her; must behave to the King and his Court, to her own family and their rivals and the ambassadors of every nation in Europe who came to pay court to her, as if she had come merely to visit her child, and as if, given her own way, she would not have smashed the gilded bubble of dance and laughter with a blow, so that these damned lackadaisical, self-important, rich, preening men would be hurled by circumstance round the conference table, where she would have them, to discuss with all the gifts in their power, the future policies of France and of Scotland."