Sentences

A few weeks ago, I listened to an interview with Benjamin Dreyer (Copy Chief of Random House) where he gave a tip for budding writers I’d never heard before. Copy who you admire. Literally and physically copy them. Take a piece of their work and type it. The process will help you understand the way sentences are built and their mental process behind. 

The article I published yesterday was written à la Olivia Laing; today’s à la Jia Tolentino. And while typing the previous sentence, I detect it may need a ‘supposedly’ in capital letters at the beginning. Just now, I cannot help noticing the large distance between the result and my intention.

Dreyer’s method is too close to the punitive ‘technique’ my generation suffered at school to learn to spell. Still, it quickly helped me disentangle the musicality of two authors I admire and realise how they glue their ideas together. Laing’s sentences are shorter than I’d perceived, whereas Tolentino’s much longer, as if her fingertips couldn’t keep up with the number of speech bubbles bursting out of her head. 

The writing process is often full of conundrums. Now it’s evident that wanting to be Olivia Laing and Jia Tolentino at once is impossible. I need to turn the tables and, actively, work on transforming this unease in curiosity. Who would I choose? Where do I truly stand? Which one of these very different ways of writing feels closer to my heart? What type of writer am I? Do I really need these answers?

The above diagram is from here.