The Soundtrack of Syntax
Thursday nights, beginning May 20
Description: Robert Frost said, “A sentence is not interesting merely in conveying a meaning of words. It must do something more: it must convey meaning by sound.” In this four-week workshop, we’ll address various ways in which sentence structure and syntax can enhance prose through pacing and rhythm. Like the soundtrack to a movie, the syntax of the sentence can create suspense, accelerate action, enhance the description of a character, or create the emotional tone of a setting.
You will begin the class by bringing in a completed draft of a piece that you’re willing to edit and revise. We’ll closely examine paragraphs in stories by Alice Munro, Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Carver, and Maeve Brennan as well as a selection from a prose poem/essay by Joshua Beckman to see how different types of sentences create different effects in the ear of the reader. We’ll also do various writing exercises that will allow you to experiment with these effects in your own work.
This workshop is designed to help you enhance your writing on the sentence level. As such, we will focus on the sentence and paragraph with the same intensity that poets study the line and stanza. You will leave the class with extensive revisions of your piece and a new appreciation of how manipulation of syntax can push your sentences and paragraphs to the next level.
Who Should Attend: Intermediate and experienced writers with a completed draft of a story or essay they’re working to revise.
About the Instructor: Garrett J. Brown’s first book of poems, Manna Sifting, won the Liam Rector First Book Prize from Briery Creek Press in 2009. His other awards include first place in the Poetry Center of Chicago’s 2005 Juried Reading contest, judged by Jorie Graham, runner-up in the 2003 Maryland Emerging Voices competition, and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2000. His poems have appeared in journals including the American Poetry Journal, Urbanite Baltimore, the Ledge, and Natural Bridge and in his 2003 chapbook, Panning the Sky.