“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” ~Ernest Hemmingway
Hello, writers! Happy Monday! How are you all feeling about the week starting? Energized and excited? Resigned? Or anxious and already exhausted? Here, I’m coming off of three really busy weeks, and looking forward to a week of catching up and taking care of myself.
This week I’m thinking about sentences. For a writer, words are the basic building blocks, and much comes down to choosing the right ones. But we often skip from words to paragraphs, moving quickly along as we try to express an idea, or a story, or an experience. I think it can help to slow down and focus on composing a good sentence. Some days, maybe, one good sentence may be the only thing we can write. And, as Ernest Hemmingway said, that’s actually our only job as writers. “All you have to do is write one true sentence.” Sure, maybe there will be another sentence after that one, but that’s not our worry at the moment. First, we have to write this one.
When I was a teen, I read Strunk and White’s book, The Elements of Style, which I’ve since reread several times. I learned a lot from that little book, but one section that really stood out to me was An Approach to Style, in which White says that style (in writing terms) is something personal and intuitive. He then gives an example of a sentence whose style disappears when it is rewritten:
If you doubt that style is something of a mystery, try rewriting a familiar sentence, and see what happens. Any much-quoted sentence will do. Suppose we take, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Here we have eight short, easy words, forming a simple declarative sentence. The sentence contains no flashy ingredients such as, “Damn the torpedoes!” and the words, as you see, are ordinary. Yet in that arrangement, they have shown great durability: The sentence is into its third century. Now compare a few variations:
Times like these try men’s souls.
How trying it is to live in these times!
These are trying times for men’s souls.
Soulwise, these are trying times.
It seems unlikely that Thomas Paine could have made his sentiment stick if he had couched it in any of these forms. But why not? No fault of grammar can be detected in the, and in every case the meaning is clear. Each version is correct, and each, for some reason we can’t readily put our finger on, is marked for oblivion. We could, of course, talk about '“rhythm” and “cadence,” but the talk would be vague and unconvincing.
For our writing prompt today, I thought we could focus on writing one true sentence, and then rewriting it with a few variations, to experiment with how each one feels for us and our readers.
What would your “one true sentence” be right now? What is the one thing that is most true of you, or how you are, or where you wish you were, or what happened to you? What is at your core, or at your character’s core? — a desire? a sorrow? a sweet, secret gladness? How can you express that one true thing so that it’s not only honest and accurate, but evocative? So that it stirs something in the reader as well as in your own spirit?
Write that one sentence that is true for you, and then rewrite it a few times. Have fun with it. Write some versions that seem silly, or awkward, as well as some that feel witty or profound, or just simple and true. See if you learn anything about your own truth in that rewriting. Then, if you want to, you can write more sentences, expanding on the first one. But spend some time with the first one.
Here’s my sentence, and some variations, as an example:
She grew slower, and the pain grew greater, and her dreams became more and more humble: From flying, to running endlessly without tiring, to hiking for miles, to a simple rambling walk.
She used to have dreams of flying, but as the pain in her feet and knees worsened, she began to dream of running, then of long rambling walks.
As she grew increasingly disabled, her dreams changed from flying, to running, to simply going on long walks without pain.
As she grew increasingly disabled, she went from dreams of flying (bliss!) to running (joy!) to simply walking without pain (oh, if only!).
If you find that your one true sentence is something that you’re not ready to share yet, you can work on a different one. No pressure!
Can’t wait to see what you write!
Just a note that Monday posts are free to the public, but Friday posts are behind a paywall to protect our privacy and our work in progress.
Mine: Justice dwells in the wilderness. Justice dwells in the wild. Justice dwells in wilderness. Justice sits outside, waiting.
Justice waits in the wild.
The work is all that remains
The only thing left to do is the work
It’s all done now but the work
Only thing left now is the work
All that’s left now is the work