Guest Writing Prompt for April 28, 2023

If you are interested in being featured for a guest prompt please email sprinkledinspiration@yahoo.com

Photo Caption: Photo is the cover of Nina Schuyler’s book Afterword.

Feature Friday: Nina Schuyler

Author of the novel, Afterword, published in May 2023; author of How to Write Stunning Sentences. She teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco and Stanford Continuing Studies

Nina’s Prompt

"The water would rise inch by inch, covering the grass and shrubs, covering the trees and houses, covering the monuments and the mountain tops." --James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This sentence is so cool because it mimics the water rising, slowly covering the earth. It's called syntactic symbolism, when the syntax simulates the content, and it makes the reader feel it. 

Maybe writing this one sentence will unfurl a story. Maybe it fits into a work-in-progress. 

How to do it?

Start with an independent clause. Use a subject that is going to grow or stretch out, like the water rising. Now add three modifiers that give details about the subject of your sentence. In Joyce's sentence, it's water. Can you repeat the same word at the beginning of each of the modifiers? 

More from Nina

Substack: ninaschuyler.substack.com

Facebook: nina.schuyler

Instagram: ninaschuyler

Interested in being featured?

If you would like to be featured for a guest prompt please send an email to sprinkledinspiration@yahoo.com.