Today I begin to dig a bit deeper into what causes declarative sentence parades.
What I gleaned about the story: Era is pregnant. The baby might have the Defect. The doctor has the results. Dritan promised to be here. Era is alone.
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Analysis: Here’s an excellent example paragraph taken from the middle of a declaration parade on the first page:
Era stood, shaking, and walked up the stairs. The Paragon had dedicated all of level four to Medical. She kept going until she reached it. Several colonists waited in front of medlevel’s doors. A whir sounded, and the locks disengaged.
Notice how all five sentences are almost entirely independent of one another. It’s almost like how I imagine the inner narrative of a severely autistic child might sound. Yes, there are basic physical facts being observed, but they appear to have no connection, they elicit no emotional reaction, convey no portents. Just fact, trudge, after fact, trudge, after fact. Trudge. It’s almost invisible when it happens in just a single isolated sequence, but the paragraph before it did the same thing, and several others on the page as well. Taken together, it begins to feel like walking through a creepy, silent warehouse full of posed manikins. in part, it might be caused by the transient nature of the subjects. Of the five sentences, only two have the same subject, which is probably where my sense of almost autistic disengagement might be coming from.
And I should hasten to point out that I’m not picking specifically on this passage, or this book. Every time I’ve thrown the declaration parade flag, it’s because I’ve picked up on this same trudgery. And today, this particular example has helped me to clarify my thinking on why they sound in my head the way they do, and what it is about the writing that causes it.
Analysis: Three paragraphs in a row echoing on “The,” two of which also have double sentence echoes within them. That’s a short burst of five or six sentences out of only seven or eight total, that all begin with the same word.
Analysis: As the narrator moves through corridors and rooms, seeing people and things, they seem to register on her in only the most superficial way. They are just there. A boy. A chair. A door. A doctor. I’m beginning to see that part of what I call the “trudging” of declarative sentences is this simple plodding stepping-stone progress from one passing object to the next. In the midst of such a passage of prose, even background actions can seem objectified, like they’ve been frozen into abstractions that do not penetrate the narrator’s consciousness in any fashion other than as a thing to be observed. And in that sense, they simply march on past the narrator as he or she moves through the story. Trudge, trudge, trudge.
“Taken together, it begins to feel like walking through a creepy, silent warehouse full of posed manikins”
If I ever want that vibe to hit the reader, I will now use a declarative sentence parade, if the POV allows. Odd how something that is typically a mistake might be used effectively when there is actual intent.
“part of what I call the “trudging” of declarative sentences is this simple plodding stepping-stone progress from one passing object to the next. In the midst of such a passage of prose, even background actions can seem objectified”
Another use for this typically problematic structure. This could give you insight into an autistic character or, with a sinister bent, into the mind of a sociopath.
BTW, I love IoD! Keep going! I’ll be submitting to you someday :)
You’re right. The issue is not that declaration parades are inherently bad. It’s that they produce a specific effect, so when they’re created accidentally, the effect feels inappropriate to the situation.
Big fan of your work, going through it to work on my own novels. Could you provide an example of how the passage could’ve been written without a declarative sentence parade? I’m having trouble varying my sentences in my action sequences. Thanks.
Thanks, Jamie. That’s a good question. One good way to break up a declaration parade is to remember that a story is not about the facts. It’s about the impact those facts have on the narrator, and through them, on the reader. So no matter what is going on, it’s always fair game to let the narrator comment on what’s happening, to provide expanded context. Take the facts being declared and relate them to the worldview of the narrator describing them. What do they mean? Even something as simple as walking up the stairs can become more engaging if the author remembers to relate that action to the needs of the character.
I don’t recall what was really going on in that quoted scene, so I’ll just make something up, but this is how that excerpt could have been knocked out of its declarative rut…
Era stood, shaking, and walked up the stairs, the pain stabbing into her bowels with every movement. The Paragon had dedicated all of level four to Medical, but that was three floors up. Three. Thirty individual stairs at the very least, and each one would be a knife in her belly, but She kept going until she reached it. Several colonists waited in front of medlevel’s doors. Era ignored them and their stares of impropriety and she forced herself to keep her rhythm, unwilling to even pause for fear she would not be able to will herself into motion again. One foot, and then another, and another. Past the colonists with their colds and scraped knees. Past the vicar leaning unsteadily against the wall with his unfocused eyes and the stench of moonshine on his breath. Then suddenly, she was there. A whir sounded, and the locks disengaged as Dr. Mitchell emerged like a an angel wreathed in light. She had only enough strength left to see the look of shock register on his face. Then the angel and his wreath were gone and Era plunged headlong into oblivion.
I’ve put more drama into that excerpt than might have been appropriate to the original scene, but I did it to make the point as clear as possible. Stories are not about stairs, or where the Medical department is located, or the sound of whirring doors. Nor are they about simple, plodding actions. They’re about the people in those places, doing those things, and about WHY they are doing them.