Which is by no means a rule-obviously, there are times when centering the character works best-but in this context I think the diversity of sentence beginnings adds to rather than detracts from the whole. We get variety without clogging up the flow, and still absorb exactly the same information that we would have if the sentence began with “When he…” It’s just a matter of word order. In other words, Kell isn’t the leading man of this third sentence (can you tell I’ve never taken a grammar class, ha ha)-instead it’s his action, his tendency. At risk of stating the obvious, the first begins with Kell, and ends with coat the second begins with the coat, and ends with the impossibility of its multiple sides number three begins-pause for a second- not with “Whenever he stepped out of one London…”, but “The first thing he did,” which is much more interesting.
There’s so much good stuff here-that killer first line! The rule of threes, four times over (can you spot them all?)! Focusing on a single character when introducing readers to a fantasy world with an unusual premise!-but for the sake of my word limit I’d like to draw your attention to the way each sentence starts. There were ones that blended in and ones that stood out, and one that served no purpose but of which he was just particularly fond.¹ Not all of them were fashionable, but they each served a purpose. The first thing he did whenever he stepped out of one London and into another was take off the coat and turn it inside out once or twice (or even three times) until he found the side he needed. It had neither one side, which would be conventional, nor two, which would be unexpected, but several, which was, of course, impossible. Because I’m one of those feckin Enthusiasts who won’t leave magic well enough alone…įirst off, may I present the opening paragraphs: Consider this a tool for your toolbox, a spell for your grimoire, a new favorite knife for your already-bristling arsenal (sorry, I had to). And then he ed” (*hurk*)-but since Schwab’s prose has fascinated me for almost two years now, I’ll attempt to make sense of a few passages here. This paragraphical rigor might well just be a component of “voice” or “style”– plenty of books do well even with paragraphs that go “He ed.
Or, you know, separate, slightly wilted daisies. And made the stuff I was writing at the time look like daisy chains. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic not only because it’s a gem of a book and you should read it and write a review on Conglomerate-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but because of the unique way Schwab ties sentences together-not just in the general sense of oh yeah writing *grunt grunt* but literally linking each individual sentence together with each individual other sentence in a way that blew my mind when I first encountered it. Hello friend! Today I’m going to talk paragraph structure, mostly as it applies to description, by doing something I haven’t done since college-close reading! I’ll examine V.
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