Ironic that it takes nearly thirteen hundred words to write about one great sentence.

I just learned about stumbling, something that until this point in time, I thought was only done after having imbibed too many large long island ice teas (I know they sound like an innocent concoction, what with tea in the name) but don’t be fooled about their power. Well apparently, here on the internet, “stumbling” that isn’t quite so hangover inducing.

Stumbling, a social networking act (to be found at www.stumbleupon.com) is allowing yourself to be directed, in a slightly random manner, to web sites that the algorithm finds for you. One day, while obsessively checking my blog stats I found that my plotdog.com blog was suddenly graced with the “stumble effect”. Something that for unknown reasons seems to double, triple, or even to a greater extent provide you with more hits than you can imagine when someone stumbles your blog. It felt necessary to find out about this stumbling thing. A quick trip to wiki and I was off to the land of confusion. Certainly I need to write a full blog about stumble someday, but not now.

This post, contrary to all evidence isn’t about Stumble, it is about what Stumble brought to me, a really great web site about writing. Well not traditionally about writing, but it was an extraordinary experience in learning through object lessons. The site is onesentence.org. This site is a reasonably creative concept where people can submit a sentence, obviously just one, that tells as much of a story as can be told. I wandered through the sentences and was slapped in my writer’s face as to the importance of a single sentence. There were so many “perfect examples”. Not just the prefect sentence, but the perfect bad sentence, the perfect exciting sentence, the prefect lead-in sentence, the perfect tripe sentence — so many perfect examples of how to write and how not to write.

How could it be frightening looking at so many single sentences? A sentence that is, by itself, barely more than an element of a story? This one short bit that is thrown around so easily in a 102,000 word novel? Some were SO good and some SO bad. I couldn’t help but wonder where mine stood. As a pragmatic sort of fellow I realize that not every sentence could be perfect, how could that be? But then perhaps it could be, should be, had to be, the perfectly crafted artwork for every sentence in a long novel. I began to practice taking apart the sentences I found like it was an addiction. How could I make it better? How could I improve or save or destroy those sentences on that web site? I was lost for hours. It could become a behavior that threatened the little productivity I am able to pull out of my days.

What had I stumbled upon? It was clearly time for a break. So I got a drink; not a “I need a coke” drink, but a true writer’s “Jesus Christ, I need a drink to not have my head implode” sort of drink. A few sips into that liquid respite from the terror any writer of true calling feels when they wonder about the certainty that the sentences we loved to have written are tripe or worse…I realized what I had found. First, this single sentence site was a way to practice my craft. Second, it was a reminder that even those stupid sentences, the ones I know that I write so I can get to my next great scene sentences (the fillers we all use), the tiny and un-noticed sentences, really matter to a craftsman. Third, this site, this exercise, this obsession was nothing more or less than an amazing teaching tool. Something that future writers could learn to use for their own craft development. One sentence could change a story, a book, a writer’s life. Dramatic I am sure, but once you see it in action it is easier to understand. You might be asking, how do you know this you arrogant writing bastard? (you should be asking yourself if I am worthy to express opinion or advice, after all I am wordy and a bit drifty in my prose). If you avoided that sentence, please ask it, I am happy to wait, mostly because I have an answer… wait, wait, wait, (elevator music), sure not a great sentence, but at least it gets the point across. Perhaps a story will help.

STORY TIME. A few years ago, I was working on screenplays and found myself at the Screenwriting Magazine Expo; a great event that I have typed at length about in this blog. At the Expo I had the pleasure of taking a class from Pilar Alessandra. She teaches screenwriting and dialogue. I was sitting in one of her sessions and we were doing an exercise on writing concise dialogue. It was interesting to see the different takes people had on what was necessary. We were given a situation where a couple on a first date is on her front steps. Now the idea of this long exercise was to cut the story down to the least amount of chat that would get the most information across. Several suggestions were offered. I gave my own and it was, I thought for at least 2 minutes, not all that terrible.

THEN, how could this happen? An AMAZING single line of dialogue came forth. SET UP (edited for brevity and my purposes): The woman asks the man if he wants to come upstairs. The answer that told the most in the fewest words was, “What would my wife say?” Damn, I wish I had thought of that one. Depressed, needing a bit of coddling (something writers should learn to live without, cause it is a hard knock, competitive writing world out there), I left vowing to not have this happen again.

Years later, I finished a really long fiction book, forgot that pledge and wrote until I stumbled upon this page. One sentence. Just one sentence. What a simple and wonderful exercise. I have pretensions of being a writing professor some day. Get an MFA, sell some work, get into that small college and teach. What more could I ask for (hint: it has to do with best seller, and 3 book contract, but I digress.) This page, this one sentence exercise; THAT is what I would start and end each semester with. Something like this:

Ok campers, here is what you will learn today and everyday. You will write, ONE SENTENCE, that is all you have to test your metal, everyone, write one sentence that tells me everything possible about a scene that I will select. I will be honest, brutal and you will learn to write in the manner that we must all write. One sentence at a time. That is all the reader promises us, that is all we can count on having, the offer to read the next sentence. If we do our job the reader rewards us with reading the next sentence. IF we don’t, well go to the one sentence page, read the great ones, then a bad one, and see what you want to do. Chances are, your reader will be in the same boat and will simply drop your work and move on to someone who does a better sentence. Make your next sentence a great one.

I think I will start right now on something that may turn into a story later: “My daughter wouldn’t cry at my funeral, she just couldn’t.”