Dialogue, character development, plotting, pace — it’s all a steep leaning curve. But, the actual language, the prose? It’s my least comfortable spot. If someone asked me to write a descriptive paragraph or dialogue? I’d choose dialogue every time.
I recently had the pleasure of taking a class from Nicole Baart. I must admit the class title initially raised my insecurities: How to Make Your Prose Sparkle. My hesitation didn’t last. Nicole is a lovely human, a wonderful teacher, and generous writer.
While Nicole didn’t suggest the name of the class (it’s so named due to a complimentary review of one of her previous novels), she walked us through her definition of prose that sparkles.
Prose should be an experience:
*not just demonstrative, but made of beautiful word choice;
*recognizable and relatable but able to surprise;
*experiential and emotional.
*precise yet lyrical.
Precise? Ok. Lyrical? Uh-oh.
Nicole provided a thorough list of suggestions, along with examples, to achieve such writing:
-Create rich layers
-Use the senses
-Provide emotional depth
-Use tools like simile, paradox, pathetic fallacy, alliteration
-Use other literary techniques like symbolism, front/backloading, synesthesia, epistrophe, synecdoche, transferred epithet
Inspired, I was ready to tackle my own writing. But, the fear crept in again. So, naturally, I avoided my writing by reading. I had just started rereading A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton, and there they were. Example after example of sparkling prose that I had never noticed before.
There was a curious air to the house, which I assumed was because no one had lived there for years, like a department-store display of especially elegant appointments. The furniture was still in place and there was no sign of dust. There were no plants and no magazines, no evidence of ongoing activity. Even the silence had a hollow tone, barren and lifeless.
Great, right? Especially that last sentence. Or:
Life in Las Vegas exactly suits my notion of some eventual life in cities under the sea. Day and night mean nothing. People ebb and surge aimlessly as though pulled by invisible thermal currents that are swift and disagreeably close. Everything is made of plaster of Paris, imitative, larger than life, profoundly impersonal. The whole town smells of $1.89 fried shrimp dinners.
And my favorite:
She told lies the same way I do, with a certain breezy insolence that dares the listener to refute or contradict.
I may not be writing prose that sparkles anytime soon, but thanks to Nicole’s class, now I can’t stop looking for it or finding it. I love it when this happens – something you newly become aware of presents itself everywhere. It’s called the frequency illusion, or the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. Your brain gets excited about the new information and then, because of selective attention, you see this new thing everywhere.
So, thank you to Nicole Baart for opening my eyes (and brain) to new ways of looking at prose. I can’t wait to read her next novel, You Were Always Mine, which is out this week. Check it out here!
Writer friends – what are your go-to skills for prose? Favorite examples? Have you ever experienced the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon?
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