In the meanwhile, my list of ready-to-blog sentences was running low. In honor of Pride month, I decided to browse Wikipedia's list of LGBTQ authors for inspiration. I was happy to find Catherine Ryan Hyde there, like an old friend. Where We Belong is the first book of hers I read. I've gone on to read a dozen more.
The first sentence of Where We Belong by Catherine Ryan Hyde is: "By the time I was seven, I had twenty-two packs of playing cards."
This one is a seduction. It doesn't have the tension of a hook. Twenty-two packs of playing cards is unusual – a bit of mystery – but not dangerous. It isn't a promise – I don't detect another book it references or a strong marker of genre. There are poetic techniques to create beauty.
The first part of the sentence has four long "i" sounds: in by, time, I, and I. They come quickly. It's a long vowel sound, creating a bit of suspension in the rhythm of the opening. Try saying it aloud: "By the time I was seven, I...." These long vowels are hard to rush over. They ask us to slow down and savor.
The next portion of the sentence contains a number with three quick "t" sounds: twenty-two. It's the most alliterative number under fifty – I counted through them to check. Then we have two "p" sounds for another quick alliteration: "packs of playing cards." I almost always call these "decks of cards." Hyde made the choice to include "playing," which she could have left out, and to use "packs" rather than "decks."
The stressed syllables of the sentence do not fall into a regular pattern. I hear the first section as falling in triplets, then the second section in irregular pairs. It's a rhythm that catches attention without monotony.
Poetic devices like repeated sounds and ear-catching rhythms most often go with sentences in my seduction category.
Within a few paragraphs of this first sentence, there are events that could have created high tension. Hyde chose to start more quietly.
The sentence contains one character, "I." "Before I was seven years old," places the sentence in the formative past – here is an early childhood situation that influenced the character. The situation is "had twenty-two packs of playing cards." That's unusual. Twenty-two is more packs than most people need, especially at seven years old. We do wonder why the narrator had so many cards, so young. That's a call to our curiosity, rather than to fear or excitement – a gentler invitation to read on, which is another reason this sentence seems a seduction rather than a hook to me.
But maybe Hyde knew hooks could be gentle. After all, I read this book and twelve more of hers. I do seem hooked enough.
Photo by Klim Musalimov on Unsplash
Graphic elements by Ken Silbert
No comments:
Post a Comment