“They arrived at the mouth of an oversized freight elevator, scrambled inside, and begun to plunge earpoppingly hellward, aged fluorescent bulbs buzzing and flickering till the brakes caught just when it seems too late, and they bloomed to a stop and came out into a tunnel, deep underground, which led them under the creek bed and then slowly uphill for half a mile, where they exited at last into brightly sunlit terrain where they could hear in the distance the invading motor convoy and the blades of the helicopters, merged in an industrious roar that could as well have been another patch of developer condos going up.”

from Vineland by Thomas Pynchon

• This sentence is a summary of a journey. Summary, creative writers rightly worry, can be uninteresting. What makes this walk after an elevator ride engaging?
  • The context is one answer. The sentences before this suggest a chase is beginning. The characters are in danger, but even without that context I think this summary holds readers’ attention. Context alone is not enough.
  • While it is a summary, the sentence uses particular sensory details. It is specific and evokes sight and sound and perhaps a sense of movement.  
  • Word choice matters. “Oversized,” “scrambled,” “plunge earpoppingly hellward,” “bloomed,” for example. Almost every word manages to be interesting or a small surprise.
  • Finally, figurative language helps make the sentence interesting. After all, according to the first few pages, the elevator is a mouth and characters are inside.
• The sentence begins at the beginning of the journey and ends at the end of the journey.
• The length or structure or shape of this sentence is part of what is interesting about it. To illustrate, what would it be like as a series of shorter sentences? Would it be less or more engaging?
  • They arrived at the mouth of an oversized freight elevator. Scrambling inside, they began to plunge earpoppingly hellward. Aged fluorescent bulbs buzzed and flickered till the brakes caught just when it seems too late. They bloomed to a stop and came out into a tunnel, deep underground. It led them under the creek bed and then slowly uphill for half a mile. They exited at last into brightly sunlit terrain. In the distance they could hear the invading motor convoy and the blades of the helicopters. The sounds merged in an industrious roar that could as well have been another patch of developer condos going up
  • Obviously, rendered in shorter sentences, the reading experience has changed. Is it more or less likely to interest readers?
• As the sentence ends, it returns to a larger theme, in this case the environment.

Consider trying something like this.

“John Rainbird thought later that things could not have worked better if they had planned it . . . and if those fancy psychologists had been worth a tin whistle in a high wind, they would have planned it. But as it happened, it was only the lucky happenstance of the blackout’s occurring when it did that allowed him to finally get his chisel under one corner of the psychological steel that armored Charlie McGee. Luck, and his own inspired intuition.”

from Fire-starter by Stephen King

This paragraph begins a chapter. Here are some quick thoughts.

• Readers know almost immediately that things worked out for this character but how things worked out is only presented very generally here. At the same time, the general language makes a promise: readers will have details. But the sentences also delay their presentation. The sentences build anticipation, in other words. Readers read on, looking for details.
• The sentences that delay the details characterize both the characters involved in the event that will be described. John Rainbird thinks he has finally got “his chisel under one corner of the psychological steel that armored Charlie McGee.” Rainbird’s thoughts let readers know how he thinks of himself and Charlie McGee. Hi goal is clear. Consequences and change (McGee trusts or has opened up to Rainbird) are implied.
• While the event is only described generally, readers have reasons to think it will be interesting: it’s a blackout, there is luck and “inspired intuition” involved, “those fancy psychologists” should have thought of it themselves.

These are a beautiful few sentences that drive readers farther into the chapter.

“I told a woman who plays in the orchestra how uncapturable music is, how I cannot think of organizing the music I hear, but only be its audience. But she said that writing is the most abstract form; the other forms have concomitant human sense organs; music has the ear, and painting the eye, sculpture the hands, and acting and dancing the voice and body. But writing, she said, does not have its organ. She began to cry; I’ve not sure why.”

Maxine Hong Kingston, quoted in Metro: Journeys in Writing Creatively

If you know where this anecdote originally appeared, please let me know.

• The stories characters tell are especially effective ways to characterize.
• This story starts with one character (“I told . . .”) describing another (“a woman who plays in the orchestra”) and making an assertion about a form of art. There is a clear connection between one of the characters and the subject of the assertion (orchestra/music). It’s a simple straight-forward beginning.
• The paragraph takes the form of an assertion in the first sentence, a general qualification (“But she said . . .”) in the second, a more specific qualification (“But writing, she said, . . .”) in the third, and a reaction to conclude.
• The story is told and reacted to by the teller and hearer. Their reactions are close to the story and to each other (“She began to cry; I’ve not sure why”). This proximity highlights the contrasts and focuses the characterization.
• As short as this anecdote is, it shows the value of asking big, philosophical questions and capturing insights or close observations about the world.
• Finally, the story shows or lists examples of a word (“concomitant”) it uses (“music has the ear, and painting the eye”) These examples show the meaning of the word with specifics. Those specifics are far more interesting that the abstract definition: “concomitant: naturally accompanying or associated.”

Here’s an effort at some of what I’ve talked about: “I told the blacksmith that I could never make a sword, that I’m not a creator, that I’m afraid to risk the time it takes, that even standing in the heat for hours is beyond me. But he said that once you’ve seen it done, once you’ve followed the steps–they’re the same each time–over and over, you don’t have to think about it much. And once you’ve been rewarded for your work, he said, once you’ve been paid, your days are just repeating the steps over and over as fast as you can. That’s all. He wouldn’t look at me after that and wouldn’t sell me a blade; became too good for me, I guess.”

What do you think? Can you provide an example?

“The very next day, a woman ahead of Graham in line at the deli order a Reuben sandwich with French dressing instead of Russian, and Graham recalled that his ex-wife had often order that very sandwich, and then he realized the woman was his ex-wife.”

from Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny

Here are some thoughts about this graceful sentence.

• The surprise in this sentence is a result of its shape, its structure. The information it presents is ordered so that readers move from “a woman ahead of Graham” and the details of a sandwich, to the memory of a woman, to the actual woman in the character’s present moment. In other words, readers move from trigger, to memory, to instance/event.

• The process of recalling a memory takes place within the process of ordering a meal. The character’s mundane becomes a source of possible drama and his reaction to this event characterizes. Graham, in the sentences that follow this one, vacillates between inviting his ex-wife to eat with him and avoiding her by slipping away.

• The italics provide an emphasis that perhaps characterizes but also gives readers an additional clue that while we’re within Graham’s consciousness his ex-wife is also present before him and us.

Consider building a sentence using a similar structure, one that moves from trigger to memory to surprising presence.