Tag Archives: sentences

This Is Your Brain on Sentences

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the-high-mountains-of-portugalWords express emotions, actions and sensations. Both short Hemingway-ish power sentences and long clause-embedded beauties force me to marvel at the craft, inventive structure and grammatical placement. I go back, reread and savor an author’s phrase word by word. Reading is good food for the brain.

Now science proves what literature already knew. Neuroscience News reveals a study about predicting the areas of the brain activated by words in a sentence. Previous studies mapped the brain on the meanings associated with words. For example, the article cites the word “play” which triggers brain areas associated with biomotion and arousal. With a deliberate thought to brain play, it’s time now to hunt for some examples of brain tingling responses.

A perfect source of material is Yann Martel’s The High Mountains of Portugal. For readers of Life of Pi, Martel’s latest book combines unusual characters with somber themes, apes, and a special something extra of magical realism on the top. I listened to the audio book first and then sought the written copy to reread my favorite parts. Heck, I pretty much reread the whole book. The pure escape of Martel’s writing saved me when I had an unpleasant chore to tackle. Plugging my brain into Martel’s Portugal transformed the experience.

Lingering Despair

The novel begins with a quirky character Tomas who is heartbroken from the death of his son and the woman he loved. “ . . . he is ambushed by a memory of Dora, smiling and reaching out to touch him. For that, the cane is useful, because memories of her always throw him off balance” (Martel 2).

Martel uses the uncle to ask, “Why? Why are you doing this? Why don’t you walk like a normal person?” (9) My brain sympathizes with Tomas’ sadness and his peculiar manner of walking. Martel explains that “what his uncle does not understand is that in walking backward, his back to the world, his back to God, he is not grieving. He is objecting. Because when everything cherished by you in life has been taken away, what else is there to do but object?” (12).

Pestering Itch

Tomas begins his own quest for a sacred artifact in the high mountains. Preserving the past, the legends, and the myths, the mountains are also primitive and resist the modern. Soon, Tomas “is itchy all over, in a manner that is absolutely maddening, precisely because he is a tornado of vermin, with a civilization of lice, fleas, and whatnot dancing upon his head” (Martel 82). And ten pages later, my own skin crawls with imaginary lice. I feel Tomas’ relief when “he raises his ten fingers in the air. His blackened fingernails gleam. With a warlike cry, he throws himself into the fray. He rakes his fingernails over his head-the top, the sides, the nape–and over his bearded cheeks and neck.” And the scratching and grunting satisfaction continued for several pages, but I turn down the volume and glance around to see if any of the neighbors have come to find the source of such groans.

Nauseating Unease

Autopsy is common on the prime time television series. Martel cleverly calls “every dead body . . . a book with a story to tell, each organ a chapter, the chapters united by a common narrative” (137). My lessons in anatomy are limited to life drawing classes. Dissections ended in ninth grade biology with a starfish and frog. And my experiences with decay are limited to the latest zombie movie or the refrigerator crisper drawer. Martel lures squeamish readers, like me, into the examiner’s office. The coroner, Eusebio, “is used to being greeted by the Mortis sisters when he comes to work. The oldest, Algor, chills the patient to the ambient temperature; Livor, the middle sister, neatly applies her favourite colour scheme–yellowish grey to the top half of the patient and purple-red to the bottom half, where the blood has settled–and rigor, the youngest, so stiffens the body that bones can be broken if limbs are forced. They are cheery ones, these sisters, eternal spinsters who ravish innumerable bodies” (Martel 190). From here, the author dives deep into the stages of decay in the days after death. He pushes the descriptions to the limit; I can’t take any more. My brain on full revolt warns to avert my eyes and cover my ears. It was almost too much. It was too much. But then, before I look away, something unexpected happens. Something magical. Something beautiful. Something unreal. I want to believe. However, I also wanted to believe the notion of Pi training a tiger on a rescue boat in the middle of the ocean.

The High Mountains of Portugal is a successful storytelling rich for study. Other areas of study might include theme, structure, and magical realism. In every post, I highlight an author’s unique writing with a specific goal to avoid spoiling the reader’s full enjoyment of the plot and the story.

Help Wanted – First Sentence

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Look, my old friend, my opening sentence . . . things are not working out. The other sentences are having to work overtime to make up for you. You’re not doing your share of the work, and your fit with the rest of the story is not what I expected. I thought you were the one. But I’ve changed and you are . . . still the same bunch of words I wrote last year. I’m sorry, but you have to go. You’re deleted.

Help Wanted: New first sentence needed in short story. Must be a team player, innovative, hard working, and dependable. Preferred applicants will have experience in attention grabbing, mood creation, and innuendo. Relocation possible.

A first sentence creates curiosity. In a short story, the writer wastes no time and no words delivering the beginning of the story. The main character incurs conflict almost immediately and begins in the action or mood of the piece. First sentences can deceive to intrigue the reader. Others warn of impending troubles. Point of view and narrative distance add richness and texture to the story and the voice of the writer. The theme is almost tangible in the first paragraph if not the very first sentence.

When I need a new sentence, I reference my favorite openers. Why does the sentence work? What is the unanswered question? Do words like beautiful, murderous and homeless lure readers? Can a sparse statement say more than a long sentence? How does Wolfe or Faulkner paint broad brushstrokes of the scene’s details? The collection below of short and long sentences demonstrates the magic of a powerful opening line.

“It seemed to Myop as she skipped lightly from her house to pigpen to smokehouse that the days had never been as beautiful as these.” — Alice Walker, “Flowers”

“One day you have a home and the next you don’t, but I’m not going to tell you my particular reasons for being homeless, because it is my secret story, and Indians have to work hard to keep secrets from hungry white folks.” — Sherman Alexie, “What You Pawn, I Will Redeem”

“In walks these three girls in nothing but bathing suits.” — John Updike, “A&P”

“Anders couldn’t get to the bank until just before it closed, so of course the line was endless and he got stuck behind two women whose loud, stupid conversation put him in a murderous temper.” — Tobias Wolfe, “Bullet in the Brain”

“‘Tell me things I won’t mind forgetting,’ she said.” — Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried”

“Bill and Arlene Miller were a happy couple.” Raymond Carver, “Neighbors”

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” — Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”

“They discovered the first one in a cupboard above the stove, beside an unopened bottle of malt vinegar.” — Jhumpa Lahiri, “This Blessed House”

“When Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of her house, which no one save an old manservant – a combined gardener and cook – had seen in at least ten years.” — William Faulkner, “A Rose For Emily”

“Do not go outside.” — Ander Monson, “To Reduce Your Likelihood of Murder”

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.” — Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”

“On the third day of rain they had killed so many crabs inside the house that Pelayo had to cross his drenched courtyard and throw them into the sea, because the newborn child had a temperature all night and they thought it was due to the stench.” — Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”

After reading successful first sentences, I interview several job applicants for my new first sentence. I try each one in the vacant space at the beginning of my story. The new sentences are so eager to please, changing to fit with the rest of the piece. Then, one sentence works harder than the rest.

Applying for the open position? Your application says you’re flexible with change. Good, my edits might move or change you. You might not even recognize yourself when I’m finished. Here’s where you will work. Sit down. Try it out. Think you can do the job?