Let's Unpack this Beautiful Tribute to a Brave Mother
What Makes Great Writing #023 -- Featuring Dan Moore (and the day he realized his mom was a person).
The business world has tortured the purpose of writing.
To some, “writing” and “content” hold the same meaning. You write content to get attention and you turn that attention into money. The more writing, the more attention, the more money.
Quantity matters. Screw quality.
If you’ve been tempted to believe that is the only way to write, though, consider the following questions:
Why do you rank writers in your mind?
Why does some writing just feel right?
Why does some writing make you feel nothing at all?
Answering the last question first: some writing feels like nothing because it IS nothing. Lowest common denominator nonsense. No insight. No research. No craft. No heart. No soul. No impact.
As Gertrude Stein’s now famous polyptoton goes: “There’s not a there there.”
(A polyptoton is when you use the different meanings of the same word in the same sentence or phrase.)
When you are in the hands of a great writer, it feels as if you are being wrapped in a warm blanket after a hard, cold day.
Sally Rooney soothes romantic woes and shows a different version of love with Normal People, a standout in the romance genre.
Neil Gaiman builds towers of fantasy, lighting the windows of his worlds with jaw-dropping insights on humankind.
Marina Keegan, even after her death, explains big problems unreachable by those decades older than she was.
Certain writers keep you coming back time and time again. Their work is always too short and just right.
Dan Moore is one of those rare writers.
Dan is the first true “blogger” featured on this newsletter. Once you read the three paragraphs we’re about to dissect, you’ll understand why he’s worthy of the spot.
This excerpt is from his post: My Mom is a Movie Star.
Read the paragraphs first, and then we’ll return to review.
(PS — If you listen to the audio version of this, you’ll hear Dan reading his own words. THANK YOU, Dan.)
Three months later, my mom is sitting on a blanket on the beach, alone and broke on the edge of a continent. She lives in a musty apartment and subsists on a jerry-rigged diet of noodles and tuna. She finds solace in her newfound freedom, plus the symphonic reliability of the Pacific crashing in, out, in, out — but sometimes she wonders if she’s made a mistake.
My mom is brave, though, remarkably so, and she’s coiled with resolve, so she finds work. Incidentally, it’s teaching jazz aerobics inside an all-women’s maximum-security prison. She sells out her class slots routinely, often staying late to chat with the inmates about what landed them in the pen. Ah, don’t sweat it, she says, I’da killed him, too.
A few years later, my mom moves to Phoenix and falls in love with the skeleton beauty of the Sonoran desert. Then she falls in love with the man who’ll become my dad. They get married, have kids, and move to San Francisco, where we live on a hill so steep it might as well be a wall.
We’ll start from the top, slowly as usual:
Three months later, my mom is sitting on a blanket on the beach, alone and broke on the edge of a continent.
First, notice the alliteration (repetition of consonants) running the sentence “blanket-beach-broke"
Dan also has a way of making the ordinary seem dramatic. His mom moved to "California.” Fine. “On the edge of a continent” sounds much more intense, though.
The great writer’s endless challenge: “Can I make this word more interesting?”
She lives in a musty apartment and subsists on a jerry-rigged diet of noodles and tuna. She finds solace in her newfound freedom, plus the symphonic reliability of the Pacific crashing in, out, in, out — but sometimes she wonders if she’s made a mistake.
Look at how the adjectives inflate these nouns. It isn't just an apartment. It's a musty one. Not just a diet, a jerry-rigged one.
The device running through this paragraph is juxtaposition — all-important contrast that drives great writing forward. Dan's mom is broke. She's also enjoying newfound freedom. These ideas coexist.
Next, the repeated "in, out" makes these words nearly onomatopoetic, mimicking the waves themselves. Can’t you hear them?
(An “onomatopoeia” is a word that imitates a sound. Think: “WHAM!”)
And finally, Dan ends with an excellent internal cliffhanger, hinting there is possible danger on the horizon.
My mom is brave, though, remarkably so, and she’s coiled with resolve, so she finds work. Incidentally, it’s teaching jazz aerobics inside an all-women’s maximum-security prison.
The juxtaposition is used again here, and it's downright hilarious. You can picture the prisoners, grungy and sweaty and homogeneously dressed, reluctantly responding to instructions like: "LET ME SEE YOUR SPIRIT FINGERS!"
Like Chicago, but in real life.
Dan’s verb choice is sublime: coiled. Coiled! A less evocative word, like "determined" or "stubborn" or "ready" would be fine. But determination does not always indicate action. Stubbornness does not imply forward motion. Ready does not mean willing. A “coiled” tiger typically strikes, hard.
She sells out her class slots routinely, often staying late to chat with the inmates about what landed them in the pen. Ah, don’t sweat it, she says, I’da killed him, too.
We’ve got more alliteration here with she sells-class-slots…staying.
The last line shows us that the coiled tiger has a soft side. Soft sides lead to love.
A few years later, my mom moves to Phoenix and falls in love with the skeleton beauty of the Sonoran desert. Then she falls in love with the man who’ll become my dad. They get married, have kids, and move to San Francisco, where we live on a hill so steep it might as well be a wall.
A big picture comment: Dan tells this whole story in the present tense. Every time you read it, his mother still moves, still teaches, still gets married. Selecting such an intimate narration device brings our hero off the page.
There's a tiny parallelism (matching structure throughout two consecutive phrases or sentences) driven by more alliteration with the first thing Dan's mom falls in love with: “skeleton beauty” and “Sonoran desert”).
And finally, there's the picture at the end: neither strictly a metaphor nor a simile. We can imagine the young family perched precariously atop a massive cliff (like the house in Pixar's Up).
Exquisite.
Francine Prose, author and writing instructor for many years, once wrote this:
“The best paragraphs feel like little novels themselves.”
Dan’s paragraphs contain more depth, care, and insight than 1,000 tweets from Business Guru Bob. It feels truly impossible that he could keep this level of writing up for an entire post, but he does.
Word after word, line after line, post after post.
True excellence, in every sense.
Thanks for setting the bar, Dan.
(And tell your mom that we love her.)
Much love as always,
-Todd B from Tennessee