Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl
- By Kelly Diels
- 12 September, 2010
- 27 Comments
As a child, I walked to school, took the bus or – later, when I developed breasts and the ability to use them – ferreted rides from geeky boys with hopeful cars and V8 hearts.
This sentence is mine and perhaps is an odd one to use as an example because I’m not entirely satisfied with it. It is awkward, over-punctuated and a little self-conscious. But working on this sentence taught me something I immediately knew was captivating.
And I was right: when I ran this piece, I received several e-mails and comments specifically quoting this sentence and saying things like “Best. Sentence. Ever.”
Which is always nice. Ego-driven writers (hello reflection! You’re looking fiiiiiiiine!) like that sort of thing.
What I Did:
When I first wrote this sentence, it looked like this:
As a child, I walked to school or took the bus, or later when I got breasts and learned how to use them, weaseled rides from geeky boys with V8 cars and hopeful hearts.
Kinda sweet, but nothing remarkable. And so I played with it.
The markup:
As a child, I walked to school or took the bus or – later, when I got developed breasts and learned how the ability to use them,-weaseled ferreted rides from geeky boys with V8 hopeful cars and hopeful V8 hearts.
The clean copy:
As a child, I walked to school, took the bus or – later, when I developed breasts and the ability to use them – ferreted rides from geeky boys with hopeful cars and V8 hearts.
To arrive at the more storied, emotionally resonant version of this sentence, I
- Tightened up the prose by shrinking phrases and deleting extraneous words.
- Broke up the long sentence with dashes (I don’t necessarily recommend this).
- Changed “weaseled” to “ferreted”.
- Switched the order of the adjectives.
What I Kinda Like About These Techniques:
Last week, I declared that good writing is “microscopic” and this example demonstrates what I meant. By using more inventive verbs – like “ferreted” – you take an ordinary sentence and twist it into something quirky and telling. And, by reversing or inverting adjectives in a parallel list (like I did with “V8″ and “hopeful”), you create layers of meaning and emotional friction.
(I call this move - switching the direction of my adjectives – my Textual Reverse Cowgirl. Because I live to be salacious. Humour me.)
There’s also another, markedly less tawdry lesson here about how you can tell an entire story using mundane objects (V8 cars) – JD Salinger was genius at this – but I’ll pick that up next week.
How To Use this Trick:
These two things – using inventive verbs and adjectives, and inverting the order of adjectives in a parallel list – are easy to do. You write, and then you edit (sensing a pattern here?).
- While editing, look critically at your verbs and run through substitutes until you find the one with the most meaning, emotional resonance, or surprise.
- While editing, look for parallel lists and see if switching the order of adjectives would add a dash of sweet ‘n sour to the sentence. If it does, do it. Do it now.
Simple, yes? And effective. All you need to do is make sure you’ve got time to edit and play with yourself prose.
—————
Sunday School for Sentences will be a sixteen-part series. Missed one? Here they are:
- Sunday School for Sentences #1: Explain the Expected in Unexpected Ways
- Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl
- Sunday School for Sentences #3: Object Lessons (from Kanye West and JD Salinger)
- Sunday School for Sentences #4: How to Give Good Quote
- Sunday School For Sentences #5: Why You Should Write Bad Poetry
- Sunday School for Sentences #6: Two Damn Fine Writing Tips
- Sunday School for Sentences #7: There Are No Magic Words
- Sunday School for Sentences #8: How To Execute a Climax or Series of Climaxes. I’m talking About Writing. Mostly.
- Sunday School for Sentences #9: Thread the Grommets, Lace the Corset, Feed the Rabbits
- Sunday School For Sentences #10 – Work It
- Sunday School for Sentences #11: The Pigs In Space Edition
- Sunday School for Sentences #12: Screw SEO. I Write (Wackadoo Titles) for PEOPLE, Not Search Engines. And So Should You.
- Sunday School for Sentences #13: How to Write an Intimate Cosmology of Cheesecake, Cheesecake Shots (or not) and Shoplifting
- Sunday School for Sentences #14: What Picasso And Dave Chappelle Know about Writing. For Realz.
About the author
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I can’t even remember how I stumbled on to your blog, I can say it has been one of the best routes I’ve taken this year. Love Sunday school!!! Thank you Kelly, and yes, you do look fine.
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Grrrrrl. When this series is done you had better package it up all pretty and submit it to a freakin publisher!!! Honestly, I who buy few books would buy it. I read lots from the library but I want to OWN this in a form I can refer back to ( a book on paper).
I simply can’t wait to see what’s up next week!
You make me wanna be a better writer…
[Reply]
Dashes, Kelly, they’re called dashes, not hyphens!
(And yes, make the series a book, after you edit “hyphens.”)
Why, yes, I am an editor by trade. How did you guess?
[Reply]
kellydiels
replied:
on September 12th, 2010 at 7:36 am
@Joyful, I am tickled. Thanks so much for the catch, Madame Editrix. One can NEVER have too much editing, and another set of eyes is always a good idea. mwah.
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What Kelly said. But in the meantime, thank you for sharing so freely!
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A truly phenomenal sentence. Not in need of work at all.
I my case, after reading the sentence, I saw the inversion and tried switching the words in my head. The original meaning had so much more of an effect because I had to do a little brain work to decipher it.
I LOVE parallels. And you’re right: all of this stuff happens during the editing process.
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Sweet forward hook. Don’t forget to link forward next week.
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Kelly, I love this sentence in both its versions, but, of course, I love better the sudden surprise of the reverse that brings the cowgirl to a new level. Your skill is awe-inspiring – it feels like such a gift that you’re sharing your “secrets” with us.
Hugs and butterflies,
~T~
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Awesome sentence. Also love parallels–even the word itself is awesomely aligned. Enjoying this series as it’s what writing is about. Have directed people here to read it as it’s easier for them to read themselves than trying to explain it…Thank you.
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I love this example because the boy with the V8 heart who I ferreted rides from ended up becoming my husband. I think I fell in love with him when I was watching his very cute butt wiggle as he scraped the windows while I waited in the car.
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Shoot. I kind of love you. I’m so glad you had a bad blog and then made it good and then guest posted on Problogger and then I read it. And then I came here.
This post, in particular, is ridiculously inspiring.
Makes me want to write.
Real stuff. Not just Tweets.
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[...] meaning and turn objects into symbols or symbols into objects. That’s what I tried to do with “V8 hearts and hopeful cars” and what Siddhartha Herdegen did with his (character’s) “minimalist approach to [...]
[...] Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl [...]
I stumbled upon your blog thanks to Larry’s Storyfix.com. I was searching for ways to ‘take my reader for a ride’ in an essay I am trying to write. Larry has helped a lot. I saw one of your comments there and clicked to see what the link does. and Walla!.
This crash course in sentences is a gem set I am glad to have chanced upon! Keep going. You are my inspiration.. for this week atleast!
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[...] Use parallelism and then, when you’re feeling really tricky, swap the order of the adjectives in your parallel lists. [...]
[...] As a child, I walked to school, took the bus, or – later, when I developed breasts and the abi… [...]
[...] Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl [...]
[...] Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl [...]
[...] Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl September 5, 2010 | filed under: Work, sunday school for sentences | tweet it, baby [...]
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[...] Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl [...]
[...] Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl [...]
[...] serve my theme, I mercilessly expunge the lazy phrasing, dead metaphors and cliched descriptions. I find inventive, inverted, perverted ways to express sometimes standard ideas. I extend metaphors with surprising word choice. It’s an exacting, microscopic process. The [...]
[...] Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl [...]
[...] Sunday School for Sentences #2: The (Textual) Reverse Cowgirl [...]
[...] can do this with transitory phrases, descriptions, and even verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Instead of “manipulated”, use “weaseled” or even better, “ferreted…Put together one-two combos uniting sacred and street language or words with disparate associations [...]
Hello,
I love your blog. I love this post with your great tips on how to write better. I’m a very plain person verbally in person and on paper…or I mean, on text so this really helps. LOL.
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