How to Write Stunning Sentences

Revered writing instructor Nina Schuyler is a former professor at University of San Francisco, and currently teaches creative writing for Stanford Continuing Studies, Book Passage, and Sibyl Writing Craft. She also facilitates the popular Stunning Sentences Substack. Her fiction has received accolades as well and includes, In This Ravishing World, and the novels, Afterword, The Translator, and The Painting. Her short stories have been widely published and honored. She lives in San Francisco, CA.

• How to Write Stunning SentencesBy Nina SchuylerTABLE OF CONTENTSIntroductionPart One: Syntax1. John Updike: The Adjectival Sentence2. Justin Torres: The Long Sentence3. Anne Carson: The Short Sentence4. Elizabeth Tallent: Parentheticals and Digressions5. Aaron Shurin: The Right-Branching Sentence6. Catherine Brady: Time Modifiers7. Chad B. Anderson: The Interrogatory8. Max Porter: Syntax VariationPart Two: Rhythm and Sound9. Melanie Rae Thon: Rhythm and Sound10. Virginia Woolf: Rhythm11. Rachel Cusk: Parallelism and Balance and Series and More 12. Meredith Alling: Punctuation13. Saul Bellow: The Art of FunnyPart Three: Schemes and Tropes14. Elizabeth Alexander: The Power of Repetition15. Joseph O’Neill: Similes and Metaphors16. Elizabeth Rosner: More Metaphors17. Melinda Moustakis: Ellipsis18. Caro De Robertis Ekphrasis19. Lauren Groff: Metaphors, Similes, and Personification20. Toni Morrison: Synecdoche and MetonymyPart Four: Diction21. Grace Paley: Le Mot Juste22. Doris Lessing: Adjectives23. Kevin Barry: Adverbs24. James Baldwin: Precise Imprecision25. Toni Cade Bambara: Colloquialism26. Don DeLillo: RegisterPart Five: Imagery27. Callan Wink: Imagery28. Amy Hempel: Minimalism29. Lucy Wood: Magical Realism30. Haruki Murakami: Surrealism31. James Salter: The Unexpected ImageGlossaries:GrammarRhetoricFurther Reading

Praise for Nina Schuyler's How to Write Stunning Sentences“Nina Schuyler’s How to Write Stunning Sentences is like a Kama Sutra for sentences: it describes the positions and passions of her artful love, and through sharp analyses and generous prompts suggests how you too, writer, may become such an artful lover...Read it and the pleasure will be yours.” —Aaron Shurin, author of King of Shadows and The Skin of Meaning“Passionately intense and exquisitely precise, Nina Schuyler’s brilliant readings of gorgeously disparate sentences by a wide spectrum of innovative writers illuminate the subversive pleasures of suspension and subordination, the joys of complexity and extravagance, and the potent, piercing delights of language distilled to spare perfection.” —Melanie Rae Thon, author of Voice of the River, Silence & Song, and The 7th Man“Nina Schuyler is an alchemist of style. This book is a fantastic contribution to the literature of craft.” —Caro De Robertis, author of Cantoras: A NovelPraise for Nina Schuyler's Stunning Sentences: A Creative Writing Journal“Nina Schuyler’s book is a creative antidote for anyone experiencing stuckedness, malaise, bad news, the doldrums. And just as useful for those who aren’t feeling stuck but just want fresh, new ways to charge their writing. In her book you’ll find a host of stunning sentences and prompts for she’s a finder, she knows how to find the stunners, then shows you through specific examples how to bring forth your own great lines.” —Toni Mirosevich, author of Spell Heaven“Stunning Sentences is simply wonderful. There are eighty magical prompts that author Nina Schuyler has carefully curated, providing writers a wide range of tips and techniques to try out. This workbook is a roadmap to hone skills and will give writers tools to effectively inject imagery and rhythm in their own work.” —Devi S. Laskar, author of Circa and The Atlas of Reds and Blues