I am fascinated by the ways in which writers evoke emotion in their readers. I know from my own reading that I am unlikely to be deeply moved by a character who goes on and on about their sad plight, their glorious discovery, the enraging injustice that has befallen them. Or, worse yet, a narrator who goes on and on as though trying to convince me of the gravity of these things. So, how is it that I am moved? I have begun to amass clues by reading like a writer – by becoming attuned to my emotions as I read and asking questions to dig deeper into the craft of writing.

Here’s an example of how this looks when I do it:

In the book, Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Zach, as part of his healing process, decides to walk a labyrinth:

All I had to do was put one foot in front of the other and follow the path. I could trust the labyrinth. It would lead me to the center. I could hear the wind blowing through all the trees and the earth was moving and I knew that it would be smarter for me to stop and go back to Cabin 9 where I would be warm and safe but I didn’t want to be warm and safe. I wanted to go to the center of the labyrinth. (Sáenz 204)

As I read this passage, I noticed that my reading got frantic around the words “…earth was moving and I knew…” I felt panicked, like I was searching for something I couldn’t find. Like I couldn’t catch my breath.

Now that I had determined when I experienced an emotion in my reading, and what emotion it was, I had to figure out why I started feeling that way. I reread the entire sentence:

 I could hear the wind blowing through all the trees and the earth was moving and I knew that it would be smarter for me to stop and go back to Cabin 9 where I would be warm and safe but I didn’t want to be warm and safe.

Long, right? Especially when you compare it to the other sentences in the passage. It goes on and on much like the labyrinth Zach is about to walk. In The Art of Fiction, John Gardner explains that a sentence

may be propelled by some driving, hysterical emotion … or may be kept aloft – that is, held back from the relief of a final close, a full stop for breath … – by some neurotic sense of hesitation in the character whose troubled mental processes the sentence is designed to reflect… (148)

I think that this long sentence from Last Night I Sang to the Monster is an example of one that mimics the mental processes, the drive, the hysterical searching, of Zach.

Working in tandem with this long sentence, Sáenz set up a juxtaposition. Zach notices the wind in the trees, the earth moving… Big, broad concepts. Then there is something specific – Cabin 9 – and the repetition warm and safe … warm and safe. On the one hand Zach wants to search, and I believe I feel this sense of expansion as a reader because of the inclusion of these broad concepts and the long sentence. On the other hand Zach also wants security, to be warm and safe, and as I reader I feel the contraction with the specificity of “Cabin 9,” and the repetition that puts an end to this long sentence.

As a reader I feel Zach’s sense of panic because Sáenz played with sentence length and juxtaposition. How different my experience would have been had Sáenz simply written, “I panicked!”

Now, a caveat – should a writer be this attuned to every word they write, every sentence they craft? I think that, especially in early drafts, it would be extremely stunting to a writer’s creativity to do this! While it is true that some writers come out with stuff like this naturally (Sáenz often does!), others continually train their “ear” by reading widely and becoming aware of it during revision. They find the places in the story where something seems off, or where they are aiming for a certain effect, and they tweak their sentences for the greatest impact.

We’ll take a look at short sentences in the next blog post. For now, ask yourself if you have read any long sentences that evoked emotion in you. Have you noticed any juxtapositions that got you feeling something?

And as always, write fiercely.