Thank you for coming, Mr. Hawkins. A county road worker brought her here a week ago. He said he found her hiding in the brush near Cottonwood Creek. Oilfield workers found her mother and brother’s bodies down the creek from the little girl. We tried to talk to her, but she can’t, or won’t, talk. Children react strangely to traumatic events.
The first time I saw him, he couldn’t have been more than 16 years old, a little ferret of a kid, sharp and quick. Sammy Glick. Used to run copy for me. Always ran. Always looked thirsty.
“What Makes Sammy Run,” bestseller from 1941 by Budd Schulburg
I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods. I have no husband nor child, nor hardly a friend, through whom they can hurt me. My body, this lean carrion that still has to be washed and fed and have clothes hung about it daily with so many changes, they may kill as soon as they please. The succession is provided for. My crown passes to my nephew.
“Till They Have Faces,” by C.S. Lewis
(not a client, and frankly, I've walked the furthest away I can from all of C.S. Lewis's early, theological work. BUT this book will knock your socks off. It's his first and only attempt at writing fiction, and when I finished reading it, I was ANGRY that he didn't live long enough to write more fiction. It is not Christian-y AT ALL. It is refreshing and devastatingly well written.)
Everyone knows that poets are born and not made in school. This is true also of painters, sculptors, and musicians. Something that is essential can’t be taught; it can only be given, or earned, or formulated in a manner too mysterious to be picked apart and re-designed for the next person.
Every once in awhile someone will tell me that I have a great opening sentence, and I'm surprised. I usually end up with my first sentence by trimming away the unnecessary stuff I wrote in the beginning before I got into the actual point of the piece. In my old writer's group, they used to call that unnecessary stuff "throat clearing." It's what you write when you're getting ready to write. Or, if possible, I just move my best sentence to the top and call that my starting point. For pieces that are really important to me, I've rewritten the openings maybe 30 or 40 times, maybe more. Nothing ever seems good enough.
One of the reasons I recommend everyone take an intro to journalism / reporting class is because succinctness is the only way forward... What you described kind of reminds me of that. Take the sentence and cut it in half, then again, and again. 😂 Sometimes it makes first sentences sound ridiculous in news writing but as an exercise in polishing long form essays, it is very effective.
Example 1:
Thank you for coming, Mr. Hawkins. A county road worker brought her here a week ago. He said he found her hiding in the brush near Cottonwood Creek. Oilfield workers found her mother and brother’s bodies down the creek from the little girl. We tried to talk to her, but she can’t, or won’t, talk. Children react strangely to traumatic events.
- C.G. (A writer I work with.)
Example 2:
The first time I saw him, he couldn’t have been more than 16 years old, a little ferret of a kid, sharp and quick. Sammy Glick. Used to run copy for me. Always ran. Always looked thirsty.
“What Makes Sammy Run,” bestseller from 1941 by Budd Schulburg
(not a client... haha)
Example 3:
I am old now and have not much to fear from the anger of gods. I have no husband nor child, nor hardly a friend, through whom they can hurt me. My body, this lean carrion that still has to be washed and fed and have clothes hung about it daily with so many changes, they may kill as soon as they please. The succession is provided for. My crown passes to my nephew.
“Till They Have Faces,” by C.S. Lewis
(not a client, and frankly, I've walked the furthest away I can from all of C.S. Lewis's early, theological work. BUT this book will knock your socks off. It's his first and only attempt at writing fiction, and when I finished reading it, I was ANGRY that he didn't live long enough to write more fiction. It is not Christian-y AT ALL. It is refreshing and devastatingly well written.)
Example 4:
Everyone knows that poets are born and not made in school. This is true also of painters, sculptors, and musicians. Something that is essential can’t be taught; it can only be given, or earned, or formulated in a manner too mysterious to be picked apart and re-designed for the next person.
“A Poetry Handbook,” by Mary Oliver
(not a client, obvs)
Every once in awhile someone will tell me that I have a great opening sentence, and I'm surprised. I usually end up with my first sentence by trimming away the unnecessary stuff I wrote in the beginning before I got into the actual point of the piece. In my old writer's group, they used to call that unnecessary stuff "throat clearing." It's what you write when you're getting ready to write. Or, if possible, I just move my best sentence to the top and call that my starting point. For pieces that are really important to me, I've rewritten the openings maybe 30 or 40 times, maybe more. Nothing ever seems good enough.
One of the reasons I recommend everyone take an intro to journalism / reporting class is because succinctness is the only way forward... What you described kind of reminds me of that. Take the sentence and cut it in half, then again, and again. 😂 Sometimes it makes first sentences sound ridiculous in news writing but as an exercise in polishing long form essays, it is very effective.