Thread: opening sentences

I recently posted a prose fiction piece called Nocturne. Several of the comments were that the first sentence was too long and complicated. Here it is as originally posted:

A constellation of freckles, the fruit of twelve summers, was arrayed across Sarah’s cheeks and nose in a manner that brought to mind the golden sunshine of carefree days spent out of doors.

Based on the feedback, I later adjusted it to:

A constellation of freckles, the fruit of twelve summers, was arrayed across Sarah’s cheeks and nose and brought to mind the golden sunshine of carefree days spent out of doors.

Nothing too drastic, but I do agree that it is a little less complex.

However, I began reading Henry James’ Washington Square this week, and read this opening sentence:

During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practised in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession.

This is certainly a much longer and more complicated opening sentence – so what am I to think?

I intentionally wrote Nocturne in a style more like Dickens and James than in a more contemporary style. Are shorter less complicated sentences more favored in modern times, whereas in 19^th century literature they were the norm in general?

I know when I read Dickens there are often long sentences that I must read 2-3 times to really thoroughly understand, but I enjoy that style.

Any thoughts?

---todd

There's nothing wrong with your preference, provided you do some compromise with limiting its length. I know I may be talking without basis in saying this but, too long sentences would rather turn off your reader than to attract them, regardless of whether the sentence could or could not be catching and/or attractive. This is because of the culture of today, where readers prefer what is called the "TL;DR" version.

I myself find Dickens-style sentences to be rather intriguing and appealing myself, but I guess only they can pull that off without a scratch, huh?

And if I may add, the long sentence you quoted was from a newspaper article, which from the looks of it, is some sort of exposition. At times like that, I do think long sentences are more tolerated. I mean, how could uber-thick textbooks we read in school be read by millions of students and get away with it? ^_^

Just my two cents, of course.

If the style you are looking for is more like Dickens, then your audience will be much smaller. Read it out loud, both of them, and you might see what people have problems with. Writing that is hard to read aloud, makes it more difficult to read silently as well. I find this style to be tedious to read, the words scream for attention when I just want the story. I think many other readers today will agree. It isn't shorter sentences people want, it is easy to read sentences that don't get in the way of the story.

Just remember that not everyone will be part of the audience you are looking for. This leaves you with the choice of finding the right audience, or changing your style to allow for a bigger one.

Are shorter less complicated sentences more favored in modern times, whereas in 19th century literature they were the norm in general?

I think that is true, further, I think even then they were shortening. Reading letters from Samuel Pepys to a sea Captain in the 1670's he has sentences that go on for a whole page and contain sub clauses that contain sub clauses containing sub clauses, really difficult to follow. Yet from the reply it is obvious that his correspondent not only understood but replied in the same vein, this at a time when sea captain was not yet really considered a gentleman's profession and those who took it up were considered rough fellows.

I think it is not only sentences that are getting shorter, the books and stories themselves seem to be. But that may be purely subjective.

I have to agree. Attention spans are getting shorter. Long opening sentences make me wonder if the whole book will be like that. You can get away with longer sentences later, after you have assured the reader that not every sentence will be like that. C.M.

Are attention spans getting shorter? Or is it that we just want clearer, to the point, writing? Long sentences that are well written should pose no problem, assuming they are clear and don't continue on for the sake of continuing on. Sentence style changes over time, on what people like and what they are willing to read. I still love old scifi, even though it is dated, which reads well even after a half a century.

Today we have a society that communicates as much through text messages and instant messaging as much or more than face to face. It is expected that those who are used to that form of communication would be more comfortable with shorter sentences. It doesn't mean they can't or won't read longer sentences, but too much 'fluff' and they get bored looking for the 'content'. I refuse to write in text message acronyms, and would probably toss any book that did use them over real words, but I would suspect it will find it's way into literature though text message dialog eventually, if it isn't already there.

It goes back to who your audience is, and if that audience is smaller, then you will have to look harder to find people to critique your work in that style. Unless you just like being told your sentences are too long.

This goes back to the reason behind your writing. While some may not think we bother going through all this with the intent of one day having our story published (outside of the vanity presses), but with all forms of creativity, the majority of us would like to have an audience for our efforts. Someone else to appreciate the hard work we put into it, The choice is what audience do you want.

One thing to note between your opening sentence and the one you gave as an example -- it's not the letter count or word count that matters in keeping it simple so much as the idea count.

When I read the Henry James example, my mind is left pondering 3 things: time period, New York, Doctor. And it's a little vague, so it took a little rereading to get the meaning of "consideration." And the three things that I'm thinking of all work to establish setting and main character.

When I read your shorter sentence, I am left thinking of many different things: stars, fruit, physical appearance, age, history, life experience. Basically, there's too much backstory and description, and since it's all about a character I don't yet know, I don't care about any of it. And there's so much, that each detail is crowding the other one out.

If you have to start with this content, I would make it simpler by cutting adjectives and descriptive words: "Sarah's cheeks were freckled by a childhood spent outdoors." That's short and sweet, and keeps the focus on Sarah, rather than on her freckles or fruit or stars. And it cuts out the redundancy of golden, sunshine, and carefree. If you must, you could add one of those back in and talk about how her cheeks were freckled by a carefree childhood outdoors -- but I prefer when people avoid telling me things like that directly. Better to make it apparent through story, dialogue, and how she acts/thinks/remembers.

Your opening sentence is fine, it just needs tightening.

A constellation of freckles, the fruit of twelve summers, was arrayed across Sarah’s cheeks and nose in a manner that brought to mind the golden sunshine of carefree days spent out of doors.

"was arrayed" is weak and passive, and can be replaced by a single word. "splayed" comes to mind, though you might come up with something better.

"in a manner that brought to mind" is clunky, and could be streamlined to "bringing to mind"

Then you encounter a new issue.. who's mind? The mind of the reader? This is a slight hurdle that is best to be avoided completely, as it would need explanation.

I suggest:

A constellation of freckles splayed across Sarah's cheeks and nose, the fruit of twelve carefree summers spent ____(verb) in the golden sun.

Take it as a suggestion, and see what you think. It is, after all, your writing first and foremost! That is how I would have written it, though.

I happen to agree with you, in the liking of long sentences. But you can still have long, artistic prose, as long as the projection of imagery and thought is tight and strong.

Cheers!

I agree that if I am writing for a modern audience, those who embrace a more "archaic" style will be limited - at this point, I am writing mainly for myself and write what I like - however, it is nice to write so as to move others

I agree with everyone more or less - j.w.olsen, I like your honest assessment of my sentence, and I see what you are saying about too much details crowding - I guess my poetic tendencies creep into my prose - I do want something more original than "Sarah's face was freckled by the sun of twelve summers" or something like that - I guess that's ok, but I was wanting to do something more

The phrase idea "constellation of freckles" is really what sparked this entire piece, it grew out from there -

A possible alteration:

A constellation of freckles, the fruit of twelve summers, lay across Sarah’s cheeks and nose and brought to mind the sunshine of carefree days spent out of doors.

I think it may be a matter of personal taste - my wife loves the likes of John Grisham and Nicholas Sparks, while she finds Dickens and Jane Austin cumbersome and too complicated - she doesn't want to think that hard, she says - the books she likes are quick, easy to read and emotionally moving - I like 19th century literature for the richness, the subtle insights into the human condition, the sense of time period and setting - I think most modern readers will go for books my wife likes, hence their "popularity."

All in all, though, I have found good prose writing to be a lot more work than poetry, at least for me, but in a way, more rewarding -
---todd

That's fair - I do see what you're trying to do, and I think it can work. If you're going with the longer sentence, I'll cling to two thoughts (partially echoing things already said):

1) Don't use the word "of" four times in that sentence (the first two times in different, unrelated metaphors that aren't thematically central to the sentence).

2) Brought to mind? To whose mind? The reader's? The narrators? Neither the reader nor the narrator should exist, and there aren't any other characters. Hence, there are no minds for things to be brought to.

I do like the phrase "a constellation of freckles" but I'd love to see it have it's own sentence to shine in, rather than getting crowded out by other images. Otherwise, keep it up!

(Also, do forgive me if I am a bit blunt. I tend to forgo pleasantries and stick with productive honesty in these online forum situations.)

Just a quick thought,

30 words into the book and We don't even know why we have this discription let alone what type of book it might be.
Romance would be my first thought, but this sentence could go in any genre.
30 words describing this persons freckles, is it the mc? the mc's romantic interest? Mc's sister?

paperback averages 250-300 words per page, 10% of page one is describing freckles? The first paragragh is the most important in grabbing a reader. The first page is too, then the first chapter. Does this grab the reader and make him want to read more?

I will admit I am not a big fan of old style writing. But with attention spans dropping, I think shorter is better.
Just to make sure you understand, This is not my genre of reading/writing.
It might just be the next book schools force kids to read, but I have never checked out(library) nor bought any book on a schools read list unless I had too.

As a voracious consumer of more fiction and biographies than the omnipotent Jehova even could shake a stick at, I see nothing wrong with this, except for some nitpicky trivialities of a technical nature.



A constellation of freckles, the fruit of twelve summers, was arrayed across Sarah’s cheeks and nose in a mannerthat brought to mind the golden sunshine of carefree days spent out of doors.

You can delete the "was." Just kill that sucker dead. (Recently, an anime character informed me that if you kill things, they die.) He serves no purpose whatsoever in this sentence, except to make it seem longer and unnecessarily wordy. Sometimes, "was" has its uses. But usually, it's just the writer's equivalent of a smoker's cigarette butt dropped without a care on his own damn property he's trying to sell.

You can also kill the dreaded "that," as well as a bunch of other clutter, by using an awesome tool called vocabulary. I'm not insulting you here. I'm just saying that if a sentence ever seems too long, it's probably because a whole bunch of words in said sentence can be eliminated by replacing them with a single word meaning the exact same thing. And that's just awesome.

A good word in this case would be "reminiscent," I think. There could be a multitude of great words--it's up to you as the writer to find and select the best one. That's your job. That's what writers do, and quite frankly, it can be a real pain in the keister, but there you have it.

Vocabulary: your ever-helpful friend who always seems to stay the f*** away from you when you need him most.

And finally, don't stress an opening line until you're completely finished writing a piece. Why? Because the beginning is the single most likely thing in your manuscript to be revised in the editing process to the point of a Michael Jackson transformation. But in a good way. Yeah.

This seems fair

it's not the letter count or word count that matters in keeping it simple so much as the idea count.

Take the original and parenthesise it,

A constellation of freckles, (the fruit of twelve summers,) was (arrayed across Sarah’s cheeks and nose) and (brought to mind the golden sunshine of carefree days spent out of doors)

The simple things your wife likes to read have as many ideas, they are laid out singly rather than combined, eg.

Her face was a constellation of freckles. They splayed out across Sarah's cheeks and nose. One was reminded of golden sunshine, that filled the days of twelve summers spent out of doors.

That could probably be put more elegantly whilst maintaining the separation of the elements, but I hope it illustrates the difference between the old and new form. To me it is simply presentation, all the elements remain, to separate them in this way is the convention of the moment and so seems simpler to those who live in it, but the information conveyed is pretty well identical.

Just a quick comment. Until someone actually explained what was going on, I totally missed what your sentence was saying. I do read mainly scifi and fantasy, so that probably added to my more literal interpretation of it. My image was quite a bit more colorful than what you intended.

Writing is communication. No matter the style, it still serves to communicate meaning to someone else. If someone has to interpret for the reader to make it clear, then it probably isn't that clear.

Still, I know I won't be in your intended audience, so my missing the meaning may not be important.

Originally Posted by toddm

I recently posted a prose fiction piece called Nocturne. Several of the comments were that the first sentence was too long and complicated. Here it is as originally posted:
A constellation of freckles, the fruit of twelve summers, was arrayed across Sarah’s cheeks and nose in a manner that brought to mind the golden sunshine of carefree days spent out of doors.

There's really nothing wrong with the length of that sentence, nor with the complexity of it.