Building Great Sentences (12 page)

But subordinate sentences of only four or five levels don't run into that problem. For instance, few of us would think anything strange about a sentence that read “He drove carefully, one hand on the wheel, the other hand holding a sandwich, a ham and cheese fossil, a strangely colored lump made three days before by his sister.” That sentence clearly prepares us for a shift of focus to the sister, revealing that one of the strengths of the subordinate cumulative form is that it provides clear transitions from one sentence to another, virtually guaranteeing that our writing will never sound choppy.

Once again, I should stress that purity of syntactic form is rarely, if ever, something writers should be concerned with in real-life writing situations. I try to present the most pure or most extreme form of sentence syntax, only to suggest the point where the inherent strengths or advantages of that form are at their greatest.

When Mixed Cumulatives Are Good, They Are Very, Very Good!

Most of the time we will approach, but rarely reach, the exaggerated limit of pure syntactic form. Indeed, most subordinate cumulative sentences are really just dominantly subordinate, rather than exclusively so. Their distinctive rhythm has a bit more to do with moving the sentence forward than having it run in place, as coordinate form suggests. Writers will almost certainly rely more heavily on cumulative sentences that mix coordinate and subordinate modifying patterns than on those that exclusively present just one form or the other.

There is a wonderful sentence from Loren Eiseley that combines coordinate and subordinate modification, but does so in a way that clearly stresses the repetitions of the coordinate pattern over the forward motion of the subordinate. Here's the sentence:

(1) I used to park my car on a hill and sit silently observant,

(2) listening to the talk ringing out from neighbor to neighbor,

(2) seeing the inhabitants drowsing in their doorways,

(2) taking it all in with nostalgia—

(3) the sage smell of the wind,

(3) the sunlight without time,

(3) the village without destiny.

And here's a mixed cumulative in which the subordinate rhythm seems to dominate, a characteristically stunning sentence from Joseph Conrad's
Heart of Darkness
, yet another reminder of Conrad's stylistic genius:

(1) The great wall of vegetation,

(2) an exuberant and entangled mass of trunks, branches, leaves, boughs, festoons,

(3) motionless in the moonlight,

(1) was like a rioting invasion of soundless life,

(2) a rolling wave of plants piled up,

(3) crested,

(3) ready to topple over the creek,

(3) [ready] to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence.

We might not agree which rhythm or pattern dominates in these sentences and we might not agree with the way a sentence is diagrammed, since in many cases, there's actually some doubt about whether a modifying phrase is subordinate or coordinate, a result we get when the phrase can make sense as either. But I can't stress too strongly that disagreements such as these are beside the point: they just don't matter. As long as we understand the general principles of cumulative syntax, precise labeling or classification isn't necessary for writers to use the form effectively.

We should think of cumulative form much as we think of the human hand, which functions in an infinite number of ways, depending on what we need it to do. Sentences are like hands. We use both to meet the needs of particular situations, and the point is almost never how we label or classify either our sentences when we set them to particular tasks or what a hand does when we use it to point or pick up or squeeze or gesture or sort or hold or do any of the infinite number of tasks a hand routinely performs. The point is simply to get the job done.

It is particularly important when we write subordinate or mixed cumulative sentences that we have a good idea of all the forms a modifying phrase can take. While the coordinate cumulative form invites repetition and may actually have greater impact when all of the modifying phrases are of the same kind, subordinate and mixed cumulative forms reward variety in modifying phrases. When four or five second-level coordinate modifying phrases all start with, for instance, an
-ing
participial phrase, the repetition and predictability of that single form strengthens the sentence, but that same degree of repetition simply won't work well in subordinate or mixed cumulative sentences where we need variety.

A Brief Review of Cumulative Patterns

I want to offer a very brief review of the many patterns that a cumulative modifying phrase can take. I strongly urge you not to worry about the grammatical descriptions, but simply to read these patterns aloud until they become familiar. Remember, while no set formulas can anticipate the problems or opportunities posed by the situations in which sentences develop, there are several general patterns for adding cumulative modifying levels to base clauses. Given a base clause containing a subject, a verb, and an object, we know three immediate targets for further modification by cumulative phrases. Depending on the object of modification, those cumulative phrases may appear in the initial, medial, or final modifying slots. But as in most of my discussions, the examples I offer will all appear in the final or right-branching position.

You'll notice that in many cases the cumulative pattern produces adjectival information that might otherwise have been subordinated in relative clauses, that in several cases the cumulative pattern may actually subsume a relative clause, and that sometimes the cumulative pattern encourages us to figure out relationships between seemingly unrelated bits of information. Some of these patterns will sound natural only when we follow them with one or more other cumulative levels.

Given the base clause “The woman closed the door,” we find numerous possibilities for adding second-level modifying phrases or for adding subordinate levels to preceding phrases. Perhaps the easiest way to add a second level is to begin the modifying phrase with a verbal. The simplest way to do this is base clause, verb plus
-ing
: “The woman closed the door, closing it with a bang.” We can also do it with any verb plus
-ing
: “The woman closed the door, catching her heel on the step.” We can use almost any verb plus
-ed
: “The woman closed the door, blinded by the dust.” Or we can start it with almost any past participle: “The woman closed the door, driven by the wind.” (You'll notice that this sentence doesn't make it clear whether it was the door or the woman who was “driven by the wind.” Depending on how you look at it, this ambiguity can be thought of as either a strength or a weakness. Computer programmers have a running joke: when they discover a “bug” in their software they call it a “feature”—portraying a problem as a benefit. Likewise, non sequiturs, or phrases that might arguably modify more than one element in the base clause, are a “feature” of cumulative syntax.)

Other variations suggest the many directions in which cumulative modifying phrases can turn a base clause and the many different cumulative rhythms they set up. Sticking with the same base clause to introduce possible modifying moves results in some awkward-sounding sentences, but makes it easier to see and hear the logic of the modification. For example, starting the modifying phrase with an article leads to a very different rhythm than does starting it with a participle: “The woman closed the door, a door made of rough-hewn oak” or “The woman closed the door, the door she had never before dared to close.” Similarly, following the base clause with a modifying phrase that begins with a possessive pronoun referring to either the subject or object or verb of the base clause sets up a very different cumulative pattern: “The woman closed the door, its massive hinges creaking eerily” or “The woman closed the door, her delicate fingers white as she seemed to try to choke the doorknob.” And many other variations are possible, one of the most interesting being modifying phrases that seem to introduce entirely new and unrelated information, such as “The woman closed the door, a car alarm beeping in the background” or “The woman closed the door, a quick-thinking Pandora, closing something she never should have opened.”

The number of variations possible if we add a second coordinate level is truly staggering. And the realm of possibilities for subordinate levels simply starts the process all over: “The woman closed the door, its doorknob helpless in the vise of her grip, a grip strengthened by years of squeezing tennis balls.” Mix-and-match is the name of this game! The great variety of cumulative modifying patterns allows us to develop sentences in almost unlimited ways. Knowing some of these patterns actually encourages us to extend our sentences with modifying details. If we understand the range of options we have available to us for crafting modifying phrases, we can rely very heavily on cumulative sentences without it ever becoming apparent, much less annoying.

Next Steps

We've now reached the point where the possible patterns for modification in mixed cumulative sentences are far too numerous for us to categorize them. Accordingly, I'll just set up some examples, hoping to indicate the almost infinite possibilities in rhythms of the mixed form. Supply missing modifying phrases on a worksheet that presents the structural diagram for a mixed sentence, without saying anything about content. For instance, given the base clause “Big Al headed back into the bar” as the first level, add two second-level modifying phrases, the first starting with the word
a
, the second starting with
his
. Then add two third-level modifying phrases any way you like.

(1) Big Al headed back into the bar,

(2) a ______________________,

(2) his ______________________,

(3) ______________________,

(3) ______________________.

As an exercise I sometimes give my students a base clause, such as “They sat down at the table,” and I'll say I want a second-level modifying phrase that starts with
he
, and then a third level that starts with
his
, another third level that starts with
his
, another second level that starts with
she
, a third level that starts with
her
, another third level starting with
her
, then another second level going back to that base clause and picking up the other part of it, the table, and then two third levels starting with the possessive pronoun
its
. And then finally another second level, a kind of summative thing here, “the overall scene suggesting [blank],” and then I let them fill in the blanks. This is another very artificial exercise that is
not
the way we compose sentences from scratch, but it reminds us that even a tightly specified cumulative form can be developed in an unlimited number of directions.

(1) They sat down at the table,

(2) he ______________________,

(3) his ______________________,

(3) his ______________________,

(2) she ______________________,

(3) her ______________________,

(3) her ______________________,

(2) the table ______________________,

(3) its ______________________,

(3) its ______________________,

(2) the overall scene suggesting ______________________.

You'll be surprised at the terrific sentences this exercise can generate. For instance, here's one possible result that reminds us how much valuable information we can pack into a cumulative sentence, actually making one sentence tell a complete story.

(1) They sat down at the table,

(2) he quietly awed by the restaurant's fabled elegance,

(3) his left hand admiringly rubbing the silk tablecloth,

(3) his right hand tracing the etching on a fine crystal goblet,

(2) she distracted by and obviously more interested in the other diners,

(3) her eyes drawn to tables at which sat well-known celebrities,

(3) her imagination running wild about others she didn't recognize,

(2) the table an altar to excess,

(3) its place settings sporting no less than four different kinds of forks,

(3) its intricately patterned china giving off a kind of radiance,

(2) the overall scene suggesting what it might be like to dine at a restaurant in heaven.

See what story you can tell by filling in the modifying phrases called for by these formal patterns.

Prompts of Comparison and Speculation

C
umulative sentences are their own reward, effectively packing together numerous propositions in a way that is easy to read, signaling to readers that the writer is intent on communicating as effectively as possible, offering details and explanation, satisfying the reader's need for information. But now I want to suggest some additional advantages of cumulative syntax as it invites the writer to go beyond the bare bones reporting information to processing information in a way that suggests the individuality of the writer's mind at work. That's mostly what we mean when we talk about a writer's “style”: style distinguishes this writer from others, introducing us to the way this writer's mind works. And two of the most important ways in which writers call attention to the working of their minds are by using figurative language, making comparisons that give the reader another way of thinking about what the writer is saying, and by using speculative language, showing the reader how the writer is willing to go beyond what is actually known to try to figure out explanations or motives for or consequences of what the writer is describing.

Figurative Language

We've all heard that “figurative language” spices up our writing, as this very sentence may illustrate with its use of the metaphoric “spices up.” Figurative language comes in many forms, including the very simple device of alliteration (starting two or more words with the same letter or sound made by a combination of letters) through the more complicated onomatopoeia (using a word or making up a word to imitate or parallel a sound). Read some Edgar Allan Poe poetry, particularly “The Bells,” if you want to brush up on your memory of these two figures of speech. Others include hyperbole (“I died when I heard that”), oxymoron (“jumbo shrimp”), and personification (“the book beckoned me with an inviting smile”). Figurative language is “twofer” language, always doing something in addition to whatever it actually denotes, usually getting us to associate the figure of speech with something else—an image, a sound, a recognition. The figures of speech we probably know best are similes and metaphors. Similes and metaphors fit smoothly into cumulative sentences like fingers into a glove, which, of course, is a simile. Similes generally describe something in terms of something else, the comparison being signaled by
like
or
as
or
as if
or
as though
. Metaphors are just a tad sneakier, as they aren't always signaled by specific words, but they work the same way, asking us to think of one thing in terms of something else, as in the phrase “surfing the Web” or the clause “her words blistered my ears.”

Speculative Language

Speculative language works even more directly to establish the writer as a unique consciousness with a characteristic point of view, a mind we respect not only for what it reports to us but also for the way it processes, analyzes, or responds to the information being passed along in the sentence. We introduce our speculation in our writing with words like
possibly
and
perhaps
, frequently combined with
because
(“possibly because”), with words like
suggesting
,
appearing
, and
apparently
, and with a host of other words and phrases that indicate how we are trying to understand—and help our readers understand—things that are not known or not clear. Cumulative syntax offers us a ready-made prompt or encouragement to add notes of speculation to our writing, calling attention to the way our minds process the information and propositions we deliver in our writing,
possibly
giving our readers even more reason to pay attention to and respect our writing. If you don't want to reveal aspects of your individuality in your writing—if you don't want to reveal your own way of looking at and thinking about the world, then most of what I'm advocating in this chapter is not for you!

Prompting Comparison and Prompting Speculation

I'm also going to throw you a wee bit of a curveball in discussing both kinds of prompts encouraged by cumulative syntax—prompts of comparison and prompts of speculation—because, technically, some of the sentence moves I'll be describing are not
exactly
cumulative. However, it ought to be clear by now that I'm much more interested in the way a sentence works, the way it does what it does, than in naming its parts or holding it to strict grammatical standards. In discussing both prompts of comparison and prompts of speculation, I'll be talking about steps a sentence can take that may not be cumulative in a strict grammatical sense, but that work cumulatively, plugging into cumulative rhythms and offering the same kind of overlap and repetitive emphasis we expect of cumulative modifying phrases. By adding steps to our sentences that give our readers a new way of looking at what we are writing about, we make our writing more distinctive, more clearly the product of a unique consciousness—our own—a reflection of our individuality.

First, prompts of comparison—figurative language. Remember the basic distinction between a simile and a metaphor is that a simile explicitly compares two things of different kinds or quality, usually introducing the comparison with
like
or
as
, while a metaphor offers a comparison of two things of different kinds or quality, but does not introduce it explicitly with words such as
like
or
as
. Thus, “She ran like a gazelle” is a simile, comparing a girl to a famously fast and graceful animal, and introducing the comparison with
like
. But “She gazelled her way across the field” would be a metaphor, the comparison implicit in a verb that suggests her movement had qualities that might be associated with a gazelle.

Not every simile is a metaphor, since some similes simply make comparisons and do not ask us to think of one situation or thing as being something else, but every metaphor inherently implies the comparison we find in a simile. Both similes and metaphors make our writing more interesting and more effective. Both quickly and powerfully suggest comparisons that might be impossible to explain in any literal way. Years ago, S. I. Hayakawa noted in his classic textbook
Language in Thought and Action
that similes don't actually compare two apparently dissimilar things or situations as much as they compare our feelings toward those two things or situations, thus offering a window into the way we feel, as well as the way we think.

As Hayakawa puts it: “The simile . . . is something of a compromise stage between the direct, unreflective expression of feeling and the report, but of course closer to the former than the latter.” He goes on to suggest that “[t]he imaginative process by which phrases such as these [similes] are coined is the same as that by which poets arrive at poetry. In poetry, there is the same love of seeing things in scientifically outrageous but emotionally expressive language.”

I mention Hayakawa's view not only because I think it gets directly at the way similes work in our writing, but also because, like Josephine Miles, he reminds us that prose and poetry are not so different in their appeals, both taking steps that have more in common than we might at first think, both offering effective platforms for the use of similes to strengthen the relationship between writers and their readers. For instance, “He endured a firestorm of criticism” gets and holds our attention more effectively than “He endured intense criticism,” although what he endured didn't actually involve either smoke or fire. The metaphor “a firestorm of criticism” and the simile “The criticism he faced hit him like a firestorm” both have an emotional aspect that reveals something of the writer's sense of the intensity and drama of the situation in which someone is being criticized, not just the fact that someone
is
being criticized.

When we say “She ran like a gazelle,” we probably don't literally mean that she was as fast as that particular animal, that she ran on all fours and so on, but we are expressing a kind of visceral admiration at the way she runs. Professional writers rely heavily on figurative language—similes and metaphors—to make their sentences at once more informative and more interesting: more informative by suggesting clarifying comparisons, more interesting by turning the sentences in a more vivid, engaging, or speculative direction. In the past, you may have encountered a writing teacher who warned you against relying heavily on similes and metaphors, apparently viewing these lively figures of speech as unnecessary ornamentation that adds nothing of value to writing. Indeed, E. B. White seems to belong to this particular school of thought; in the “List of Reminders” in his chapter “An Approach to Style,” which he added to Professor Strunk's advice in their combined book,
The Elements of Style
, he sounds a warning against heavy use of similes. We can almost hear Mr. White sniff when he dismissively writes:

The simile is a common device and a useful one, but similes coming in rapid fire, one right on top of another, are more distracting than illuminating. The reader needs time to catch his breath; he can't be expected to compare everything with something else, with no relief in sight.

I don't know what kind of writers Mr. White was thinking of when he wrote this warning, but the last thing I worry about with my writing students today is that they might use
too many
similes, overwhelming their readers with a cascade of comparisons. I have to labor mightily to get my students to use any similes at all. I urge them to think of the simile as an important way to forge an emotional link with their readers, at once suggesting to readers that the writer is doing his or her level best to make clear what he or she is trying to describe or explain and giving readers a glimpse into the way the writer thinks, as opposed to just what the writer sees or reports.

The Importance of
Processing
Information

Our choice of similes shows how we process information, how we think about the information we're passing along to our readers, how we organize it, how we understand it, our attitudes toward it. As Aristotle suggested in his
Rhetoric
, the ability to make comparisons between things that are unlike and seemingly far apart is “a sign of sound intuition in a philosopher,” one mark of a sharp and distinctive mind. In most writing situations, it is not just advantageous but crucial that writers reveal their distinctive individuality, their personality as sound thinkers, through their writing. I try to get my students to see the importance of processing information rather than just presenting it.

A security camera in a convenience store can present what happens in front of its lens, but that security camera is just like every other security camera in every other convenience store. We might prefer to have the information that camera presents to not having the information, but we have no reason whatsoever to value what it records and presents over what any other or every other security camera would record and present. I see writing in much the same way. One of the most important goals of our writing is to reveal the nature of the writer's mind at work, a process in which the writer wants readers to value the writer's thoroughness, accuracy, and logic, but also the writer's unique way of looking at and understanding the world. That's really what's at stake when we talk about a writer's style, and I try to get my students to see the importance of writing with style rather than writing as if they were an unthinking and unfeeling security camera.

The cumulative sentence gives us an effective way of organizing the information and opinion we present in our writing, suggesting to our readers that we do take pains to keep the logical relationships clear among the propositions our sentences advance, suggesting to our readers that we are attuned to the rhythmic pleasures of language as well as to its utilitarian functions, forging a kind of implicit contract with our readers in which they can be confident that we're doing our level best to communicate as fully and clearly with them as we possibly can. And cumulative syntax also gives us great opportunities to make even more distinctive similes a part of our writing practice.

Listen to the striking opening sentence of Joseph Conrad's story “The Secret Sharer”:

On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes[,] resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect[,] as if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen[,] now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could reach.

I've slightly repunctuated this sentence to emphasize its cumulative rhythms, but I cite it here to note how it is only when we get to the simile “as if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen” that we fully understand the extent to which Conrad's narrator has a very active imagination and loves to use it to make stories out of what he sees. In other words, while mastery of coordinate, subordinate, and mixed cumulative forms is an important goal and may tell us a lot about a writer's syntactic skill and versatility, it doesn't do much to distinguish the skill and versatility of one writer who writes great cumulative sentences from the skill and versatility of another writer who also can write great cumulative sentences. However, the similes these two writers will think of, the comparisons they will make, will almost certainly be different, each writer drawing from different knowledge, different experiences, and revealing different interests.

Adding Similes in Final Cumulative Phrases

Consider the following sentences, some seen and heard before, but now see them taking a new step with the addition of a simile: “The boy sat down at the table, eagerly anticipating the feast, never suspecting it would be the last meal he would eat, acting as carefree as a lark.” Okay, I'm not at all sure that larks are really carefree and I am sure that “carefree as a lark” is a much-overused cliché, but this simile adds a sense of closure to the sentence, a final comment that sums up all that has gone before it. Imagine how much more effectively a more original simile would work here, possibly something along the lines of “as unconcerned with his future as a pig in mud.” Better make that “as a shark in a feeding frenzy.” Try this one: “Tired and hungry, just back from a week in the bush, I limped into the mess hall, hoping the food lines were still open, feeling like the fool it seemed I had become.” Or this one: “The chef prepared the fish, carefully, stuffing it with wild rice, sautéing it briefly, its sweet aroma blending smoothly with the other enticing odors in the kitchen, the fish becoming more than food, ascending to the status of art, as if transformed by magic.” Well, you get the idea.