You're spot on about song lyrics in relation to minimalist writing. I heard this opening line to the song, Swim Back, by Daughter - 'If you're so cold, refrigerate me.' Sent a chill down my spine.
Loved this. How I interpret this is...those sticky sentences are like condensed poems, condensed in a single line. And to be honest, I thought Hemingway was minimalist. I guess to the layman, he is. Here's my question to you, how can one know that each sentence is doing its job?
And one of your sticky lines, "Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy."
My favorite sentences leave me with an essence of a secondary sense effect. In Rant I was often left tasting warm Pennies. With Anne Rice one book left me craving milk. I find a good sentence can be a wholly physical experience. Maybe my brain is broken but it’s a fun way to experience the written word. I aim for that in my writing. I don’t know if I succeed at all but it’s the aim. A good sentence that tickles a sense.
because of how saying, ‘I’m not over you,’ wrong makes you not forget it.
My favorite Amy Hempel sentence? The last one in her short short, Weekend:
“And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women’s cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought: stay.”
Ha. I never noticed the repetition of “women” until just now.
Would you ever write a post about Thom Jone’s The Pugilist At Rest? Not necessarily that short story but any in that collection?
As much as I appreciate Tobias Wolff and Denis Johnson, Hempel and Jones really stand out from the short fiction writers I’ve been reading side by side recently, as the quintessential female and male voice and gaze. If you ever have the time, I’d love to hear you unpack Thom Jones’s work.
I go back and forth between trying to craft magical sentences and trying to just practice numerous techniques in a short story. At some point it will become more innate. It feels like some of the basic tenants of minimalism are falling into place due to workshopping, your substack, Monica Drake's substack, and putting in the work.
Most of my best short story ideas have come from one sentence.
I'm excited to show the work I've done in crafting my latest voice.
Thank you for the lesson. Do you have the link to the NPR interview?
Hempelizing a phrase, like “Those who can’t repeat the past are condemned to remember it," is another way to generate gems. (From The Dog of the Marriage.)
Apr 2, 2023·edited Apr 3, 2023Liked by Chuck Palahniuk
Hi Chuck,
I wrote my senior thesis on minimalism in college. It was always a pain to have to elbow out Hemingway when talking about it to my professors. I'm not proud of failing to stand by my analysis, but just to avoid being on defense all the time, I just replaced with minimalism with Lishism. Then within a year or two, you put out Consider This, and in just a couple short paragraphs you wrapped up the broad strokes of my thesis.
Hi Everyone,
Another fun fiddly bit about Minimalism: as Amy Hempel and Mary Robison started inching away from Lish and Minimalism, they cribbed a separate term from Carver: Essentialism. I think it might be a tomato/potato type thing, but it's been almost a decade since I've read on the topic.
For the super nerds out there, here's a couple pieces from Garielle Lutz, one of Lish's last superstars.
The Sentence is a Lonely Place gets really intellectual with the phonetics that drive a sentence sonically. See Chuck's mud sentence.
And then one step further, from the same author, we have the Poetry of the Paragraph. This merges the association of topic as described by Hempel and Chuck in a nonlinear fashion, and binds those sentences in a paragraph with sound as the glue.
I love this reminder. I remember Lish/Tom talking about the purposeful dissonance of burnt tongue. How the wrongness circumvents the well-worn channels of received text, thus touching on a new sensory experience.
Anton Chigurh’s ‘Do anything but put it in your pocket. It will become just another coin. Which it is.” always stuck with me
Completely mangoes
“For sale: clown shoes, worn once”.
Does that line never not pull at your heart? Did the clown die after one use or did someone give up on their dream? Tragic either way.
You're spot on about song lyrics in relation to minimalist writing. I heard this opening line to the song, Swim Back, by Daughter - 'If you're so cold, refrigerate me.' Sent a chill down my spine.
Loved this. How I interpret this is...those sticky sentences are like condensed poems, condensed in a single line. And to be honest, I thought Hemingway was minimalist. I guess to the layman, he is. Here's my question to you, how can one know that each sentence is doing its job?
And one of your sticky lines, "Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy."
My favorite sentences leave me with an essence of a secondary sense effect. In Rant I was often left tasting warm Pennies. With Anne Rice one book left me craving milk. I find a good sentence can be a wholly physical experience. Maybe my brain is broken but it’s a fun way to experience the written word. I aim for that in my writing. I don’t know if I succeed at all but it’s the aim. A good sentence that tickles a sense.
Loved this. Thanks, Chuck.
My favorite song lyric:
“I’m still under you”
Voxtrot, The Start of Something
because of how saying, ‘I’m not over you,’ wrong makes you not forget it.
My favorite Amy Hempel sentence? The last one in her short short, Weekend:
“And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women’s cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought: stay.”
Ha. I never noticed the repetition of “women” until just now.
Would you ever write a post about Thom Jone’s The Pugilist At Rest? Not necessarily that short story but any in that collection?
As much as I appreciate Tobias Wolff and Denis Johnson, Hempel and Jones really stand out from the short fiction writers I’ve been reading side by side recently, as the quintessential female and male voice and gaze. If you ever have the time, I’d love to hear you unpack Thom Jones’s work.
I go back and forth between trying to craft magical sentences and trying to just practice numerous techniques in a short story. At some point it will become more innate. It feels like some of the basic tenants of minimalism are falling into place due to workshopping, your substack, Monica Drake's substack, and putting in the work.
Most of my best short story ideas have come from one sentence.
I'm excited to show the work I've done in crafting my latest voice.
Thank you for the lesson. Do you have the link to the NPR interview?
Hempelizing a phrase, like “Those who can’t repeat the past are condemned to remember it," is another way to generate gems. (From The Dog of the Marriage.)
Hi Chuck,
I wrote my senior thesis on minimalism in college. It was always a pain to have to elbow out Hemingway when talking about it to my professors. I'm not proud of failing to stand by my analysis, but just to avoid being on defense all the time, I just replaced with minimalism with Lishism. Then within a year or two, you put out Consider This, and in just a couple short paragraphs you wrapped up the broad strokes of my thesis.
Hi Everyone,
Another fun fiddly bit about Minimalism: as Amy Hempel and Mary Robison started inching away from Lish and Minimalism, they cribbed a separate term from Carver: Essentialism. I think it might be a tomato/potato type thing, but it's been almost a decade since I've read on the topic.
For the super nerds out there, here's a couple pieces from Garielle Lutz, one of Lish's last superstars.
The Sentence is a Lonely Place gets really intellectual with the phonetics that drive a sentence sonically. See Chuck's mud sentence.
https://sites.evergreen.edu/eyeofthestory/wp-content/uploads/sites/137/2016/02/The-Believer-The-Sentence-Is-a-Lonely-Place.pdf
And then one step further, from the same author, we have the Poetry of the Paragraph. This merges the association of topic as described by Hempel and Chuck in a nonlinear fashion, and binds those sentences in a paragraph with sound as the glue.
https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-poetry-of-the-paragraph-some-notes/
I think the care with sentences is why I can always go back to Jenny Offill.
I love homework so much.
That's what I love about vector art and logo design. When you create it, every line counts and if it's not perfect...DO IT AGAIN!
Now life is awful again.
I love this reminder. I remember Lish/Tom talking about the purposeful dissonance of burnt tongue. How the wrongness circumvents the well-worn channels of received text, thus touching on a new sensory experience.