There is nothing that thrills me more than a perfectly written sentence or paragraph. The kind that just stops you in your tracks. Words that you have to re-read two or three times and savour before you can carry on!
I tend to burn through books at breakneck speed so anything that makes me slow down and STOP, even for a second is to be treasured. In fact, sometimes I feel a little like Indiana Jones, uncovering these gems from where they are hidden in a sea of words.
So what exactly is it that makes a bit of prose just that little bit snappier than its peers? What makes it stand out from the crowd? Well I think it can be many things.
It can be a bit of cleverness – the kind where you pat yourself on the back for ‘getting it’ when maybe others wouldn’t. It can be a piece of terse dialogue where you can picture the exact expression on the character’s face as they deliver it. It can be the imperceptible shake of a head that speaks volumes.
Mostly though it is those bits where you think if someone made this book into a movie, there is no way they could adequately convey what this sentence just did. You’ve heard people say that a picture speaks a thousand words? Well I am sorry, but sometimes words just do it better.
Recently I’ve taken to marking these words with a post-it note just so I can come back and be inspired by them when battling writer’s block. Or even just to re-savour them! Here are a few of my favourites:
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The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen
I love anything written by Scott Fitzgerald. He could make the most common or obscure things beautiful with the aesthetic expression of his words. Especially love Tender is the Night and Great Gatsby. His work is really exquisite.