What’s Love Got to Do with It?

Besides the satisfaction of seeing our words published, what other basic characteristic might writers have in common? Hint: it makes publication possible. Annie Dillard lays it out for us in her book, The Writing Life, when she relays a mini-story of a fellow writer who had a student who asked, “Do you think I could be a writer?”

“Well,” the writer said, “do you like sentences?”

We don’t find out what the student thought or did after that answer, but let’s hope the message hit its mark. Dillard reframes the lesson: “If you like sentences, then you can begin to write.” Notice she says, begin.

Makes sense. If I wondered whether I could be a painter, but I could not stand the stink of fresh paint on my brush, on the canvas, or on my pristine painting smock, then I’ll bet you a dozen tubes of Winsor & Newton Winton 200-Milliliter Oil Paint—any color—that I wouldn’t last long at the easel.

Sentences NOT words?

Notice in the mini-story what the writer/teacher did not say. She did not ask, “Do you like words? Instead, she deliberately posited sentences as THE THING a wannabe writer needs to like. True, words fascinate, irritate, and congregate. Writers can’t live without them. So, why not say words—not sentences—need to be what writers like?

I’ll let professor, author, and columnist, Stanley Fish, answer from his book, How to Write a Sentence and How to Read One.

“… while you can brush or even drip paint on canvas and make something interesting happen, just piling up words, one after the other, won’t do much of anything until something else has been added. That something is named quite precisely by Anthony Burgess in this sentence from his novel Enderby Outside (1968): ‘And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we call meaning.’”

In other words, writing sentences is not haphazard. If we’re doing our job, good sentences appear thanks to one thoughtful and deliberate choice after another. Words placed in a certain order—known as syntax—creates a specific meaning. And let’s not fool around with meaning. Mis-conveyed meanings can cause [insert a disaster of your choice here].

Nestled in their nests

Fish continues, “Before the words slide into their slots, they are just discrete items, pointing everywhere and anywhere. … Once the words are nestled in the places ‘ordained’ for them … they are subjects or objects or actions or descriptives or indications of manner, and as such they combine into a statement about the world, that is, into a meaning that one can contemplate, admire, reject, or refine.”

I love the idea of words nestled in the places perfect for them in the sentence, like baby birds snug in the nest their momma bird created. Isn’t that part of the joy in writing a sentence—finding a noun, adjective, or verb that we really want to use and arranging other words around it to create an intended effect? Here’s a tidbit example from one of my favorite authors, Michael Ondaatje, poet and novelist, from his masterpiece, The English Patient, which won the Booker Prize. “They ate and drank, the unexpected thickness of the wine like meat on their tongues.”

What about liking sentences?

As writers, we sometimes find ourselves spending wwwaaayyy more time with sentences than anything else—reading them and writing them. So, as with people, if you’re going to hang around with sentences for hours on end, it helps if you like them. Yes?

Yes, but I say we need more. I think whoever aspires to write with seriousness and purpose cannot persist with simply liking sentences. To continue in this daunting but exhilarating work, I think we must love and stay in love with sentences. After all, doesn’t love surpass like? Love, not like, changes the stinky adjective at 2:00 am. When love receives tough criticism, it takes it on the chin. Even on paper towels, love will rewrite the final paragraph over and over and over. I say a better answer to the question, “Do you think I could be a writer?” is “Do you absolutely love sentences?” Love is what enlivens, motivates, and sustains the writing. And it does the same for writers.