Prioritize Discernible Surprise
Writing advice from Spunk & Bite by Arthur Plotnik
In the second chapter of Spunk & Bite, a book about “punchier, more engaging language & style,” Arthur Plotnik gives the reader a set of banal sentences to improve. He puts the word to target in parentheses.1
My brainstorms are in bold. My final punch-up, always way overdone and ransacking the meaning of the original sentence, follows.
I’d love to read your comments on which of mine you dislike the most.
One
His smile beamed everywhere in the large room, as if his teeth were (unbelievably shiny).
His smile beamed everywhere in the large room, as if his teeth were mirrors, aluminum panels for cooking popcorn, spotlights, irradiated, /he’d been licking radium paint, fake pearls he’d stolen from his mother, the missing treasures of Cleopatra’s tomb.
His smile beamed so bright Alice wondered who he’d stolen the teeth from.
Two
Martina Higgins, a shrinking star who has become as vulnerable as (a sitting duck)…
Martina Higgins, a shrinking star who has become as vulnerable as a British prime minister, romance novel in a drug store checkout line, cat on a hot tin roof, an iron filling in an MRI machine,
Martina Higgins has shrank to the significance of a pail of water rescued from a barn fire.
Three
He was older than (the hills) now and (likely) to make his century
He was older than rattlesnakes, landmines, Ruth, bipedalism now and doomed, damned, surefire, hell-bent on making, sorry, to make his century
He pre-dated (the hills) now and was (likely) to make his century
He pre-dated the concept of executions and was hell-bent on outliving them, too.
Four
Svetlana Ivanova, a 57-year old pensioner with a mind made up like (something tight-as-a-drum)
Svetlana Ivanova, a 57-year old pensioner with a mind made up like paste, a sinner’s, a preacher’s, a mutineer’s, a rivet
Svetlana Ivanova’s mind resembled gum so thoroughly chewed and left out on the underside of a park bench so long it had calcified.
Five
They were foragers and gatherers, can redeemers, the people who (swayed) through subway cars with paper cups.
They were foragers and gatherers, can redeemers, the people who jangled, hawked, busked, chanted and danced, through subway cars with paper cups.
They were the kind of upstarts she loathed: buskers who chanted and danced through subway cars with paper cups. There was nothing admirable about redeeming cans for half of a living.
Six
How much cooler it is to save the world from the Nazis than (fret) over the NASDAQ.
How much cooler it is to save the world from the Nazis than sweat, squint at, crow, lose years, over the NASDAQ.
How much cooler it is to save the world from the NASDAQ than to lose years of sleep to worries about Nazi takeovers.
Seven
Sister Grace believed the proof of God’s creativity (came) from the fact that you could not surmise the life, even remotely of his humblest shut-ins.
Sister Grace believed the proof of God’s creativity descended, manifested, fluttered, flailed, sank, sang, resonated, from the fact that you could not surmise the life, even remotely of his humblest shut-ins.
Even shut-ins lived lives Sister Grace couldn’t fathom. Perhaps that was why she’d turned to God; she lacked the creativity to believe in anything else.
Eight
If there are a number of visually interesting ways to shoot two heads floating in an endless expanse of H2O, Kentis has succeeded in finding (not too many) of them.
If there are a number of visually interesting ways to shoot two heads floating in an endless expanse of H2O, Kentis has succeeded in finding none, one, all, half, precisely none, in almost finding one of them.
There is no interesting way to shoot two heads floating in an endless expanse of water. Kentis had to learn that at the expense of his directorial career.
Don’t buy the book through this link. If you do, I’ll get a small commission, and an over-inflated sense of myself.
Your punch-ups for three and seven are absolutely ready for the page!