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                <h1>Zk | 2022-12-31-subverting-sentences</h1>
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                <h1 id="subverting-expectations-with-your-sentences">Subverting expectations with your sentences</h1>
<ul>
<li>Sentence structure</li>
<li>Delight and surprise at every turn.</li>
<li>Noun-verb descriptions get tiring</li>
<li>Articulate defense of choices</li>
<li>Compelling narrative, but also compelling way of telling that narrative</li>
<li>Understand temperaments, learn definitions, implement variety, learn fragments, articulate decisions, acknowledge revision, produce writing</li>
<li>Gregory Orr&rsquo;s Four Temperaments:<ul>
<li>A good poem has two (concrete), a great poem has all four</li>
<li>Form: The way the writing is constructed (concrete)<ul>
<li>Literal forms</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Narrative: the story (concrete)<ul>
<li>Speaker/POV</li>
<li>Plot</li>
<li>Characters</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Music: the way it sounds (lyric/imagination)<ul>
<li>Meter/scansion/prosody</li>
<li>Alliteration, consonance</li>
<li>Rhyme</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Imagination: the magic that the writer brings (lyric/imagination)<ul>
<li>Simile/metaphor</li>
<li>School (surrealism, minimalism)</li>
<li>Magic</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Today focused on syntax</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Cumulative layering and the appositive:<ul>
<li>Bridge the gap from abstract to concrete, exteriority to interiority</li>
<li>Appositive clarifies the meaning of a sentence</li>
<li>Provides essential or additional but not redundant, adds context</li>
<li>Good for settings/moods rather than dialogue or action</li>
<li>Helps in identifying other nouns</li>
<li>&ldquo;The tree, <em>a jack pine,</em> sloughed the snow from its branches as if it was waking up.&rdquo;<ul>
<li>uses language to imbue additional characteristics </li>
<li>using simile for personification/interiority</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>&ldquo;In awe of the jack pine, I didnot believe it until I saw it, <em>the bird&rsquo;s nest hidden in its needled, benevolent arms.</em>&ldquo;<ul>
<li>appositive clause at end</li>
<li>clauses are cumulative</li>
<li>unexpected adjectives add personification/interiority</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Above: say writing about religion, using metaphor of benevolence of trees</li>
<li>Restrictive and non-restrictive appositives:<ul>
<li>Restrictives necessary for sentence to function (e.g: including a name with a common noun)</li>
<li>Non-restrictive provide additional information, usually a separate clause (still imbues meaning or adds texture)</li>
<li>Cumulative layering: adding more non-restrictive appositives</li>
<li>Dependent clauses usually appositives, but may not add additional information, unlike appositives</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>A cumulative sentence is known as a loose sentence that starts with independent clause, then adds subordinate elements or modifiers after subject and predicate</li>
<li>Useful for putting the main idea first, then expand</li>
<li>Example of interiority, gives inner life of the witness (writer as witness)</li>
<li>Adds to informality, connection</li>
<li>70% of sentences are cumulative</li>
<li>Variety to mix up rhythm of sentence (identify sustained rhythms as places to break)</li>
<li>Not really in dialogue, more for mood and scene-setting</li>
<li>Restraint: don&rsquo;t need to layer <em>every</em> noun, just use to propel the plot or the readers</li>
<li>Where does the music show?</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Hypotaxis and parataxis<ul>
<li>Hypotaxs:<ul>
<li>convey logical, causal, temporal relationships</li>
<li>used for argument and persuasion</li>
<li>provides inforamation and background about topic</li>
<li>subordination of one clause to another, unequal roles in a sentence</li>
<li>not defining (at least not literally, but interiority) but expanding/building/exemplify</li>
<li>Adds motion (e.g: immediate sentence, then use to further immediacy)</li>
<li>Polysyndetons:<ul>
<li>Figure of speech in which conjunctions are used to join connected clauses in places where they aren&rsquo;t contextually necessary</li>
<li>Creates senses/moods (e.g: conjunctions in list to show abundance)</li>
<li>could speed or slow, not always the same mechanism</li>
<li>religious sense due to biblical usage</li>
<li>can create overwhelming feelings</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Parataxis:<ul>
<li>Placing starkly dissimilar images/fragments side by side</li>
<li>forces reader to make connections between dissimilar things</li>
<li>juxtaposition without subordinating conjunctions (never &lsquo;while&rsquo;, &lsquo;that&rsquo;, &lsquo;until&rsquo;, etc)</li>
<li>Can go between sentences/fragments</li>
<li>Asyndeton:<ul>
<li>omission of a conjunction from a series of related clauses</li>
<li>accelerate passage and emphasize the significance of the relationship between the clauses</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Fragments:<ul>
<li>used deliberately for effect</li>
<li>not just tossed in</li>
<li>emphasize previous sentence</li>
<li>building tension through hard stops and pauses</li>
<li>important to vary syntax</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Questions:<ul>
<li>How much is intuitive vs deliberate? &mdash; Deliberate mostly in revision, intuitive in writing. In revision, can force it into consciousness</li>
<li>Are there styles that work better in certain genres, or are they genre agnostic? &mdash; <em>Can</em> span genres, but depends on authorial intent (e.g: minimalism, focus on plot, etc). Be strategic, be careful (e.g: if you have two compound sentences, consider a simple sentence). Use tension to speak about bigger/vaguer/more fluid things. Use tension to avoid didactic writing.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
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                <p>Page generated on 2022-12-31</p>
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