structure | Literature and Libation

I know. You don’t like Taylor Swift. Keith Urban offends you on at least seven, different, personal levels. Rascal Flatts makes you want to get all stabby with the butter knife when their wailing interrupts your morning bagel-and-cream-cheese ritual at the local coffee shop.

I honestly don’t blame you. Country music is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I’ll be the first to admit that there is a lot of drivel dribbling out of Nashville. A veritable ice cream sundae of uninspired banging on the same three chords with some cheap-beer lyrics messily ladled on top. It’s pretty hard to get your brain around all that twang, especially when there is so much great music out there that could be filling our earholes with audio joy instead.

But cast your prejudices about country music aside for a moment. While it may not be the height of melodic art, those guys down on Music Row understand the business. They get what makes a hit song, and why; all the minutiae that turns a regular guy with a hat and a guitar into a legend of Southern rock, or a baby-faced blonde bell into a stage-trotting goddess.

They’ve figured out what people want to hear, and the song writing reflects it. If there is any art in the industry, it is in the hearts and minds of the writers who, beyond all human belief, can still work the words “Georgia,” “redneck,” and “truck” into new songs in new ways. They use grammar to infuse the verses with freshness, even when the backing music is the same one-four-five progression we’ve been listening to since the Grand Ole Opry went on the air in 1925.

Let’s look at Tim McGraw’s 2009 hit, Southern Voice.

This song is the quintessential three-major-chord-progression that all new guitar/mandolin/banjo players learn: G, C, D. It’s plain vanilla ice cream, white bread, about as complicated as toast. But the writers (Bob DiPiero and Tom Douglas) manage to toy with the grammar of the verses, breaking/playing with some literary rules to great effect:

Hank Aaron smacked it / Michael Jordan dunked it / Pocahantas tracked it / Jack Daniels drunk it / Tom Petty rocked it / Dr. King paved it / Bear Bryant won it / Billy Graham saved it

The sentence structure is as simple as the chords: subject, past tense verb, direct object. But these sentences are perfect examples of the power and importance of the right verb; not only does each move the song forward with action, it’s also perfectly applicable to its subject. The historical subjects are allusions that build on the theme of the song (a single, unified “voice” of the Southern states) and give the reader (or listener) a concrete idea-cleat to attach their brain-ropes to.

The major rule violation here is the use of the abstract pronoun, “it.” In most other settings, this would be a no-no, as it’s an unqualified, unattributed object, which normally leaves a reader confused. But when the chorus comes in…

Smooth as the hickory wind / That blows from Memphis / Down to Appalachicola / It’s “hi ya’ll, did ya eat?” well / Come on in child / I’m sure glad to know ya / Don’t let this old gold cross / An’ this Charlie Daniels t-shirt throw ya / We’re just boys making noise / With the southern voice

…we see that the “it” actually refers to the eponymous “southern voice;” as if each sentence is a square on the quilt that makes up the culture of the American South.

Ever wonder why a song is so catchy? How it so easily grafts itself to your short term memory even when you actively try to force it out? Because it’s grammatically kickass, that’s why.

Not convinced that you should subject yourself to country music from one example? Then here’s another; this one form Jason Aldean’s Texas Was You.

This one’s chord progression is, you guessed it: G, C, D. It throws in a nice little E minor for spice, but it’s still as standard as it comes. But check out this gorgeous grammar writers Neil Thrasher, Wendell Mobley, and Tony Martin slipped into the verses:

Ohio was a riverbank / 10 speed layin’ in the weeds / Cannonball off an old rope swing / Long long summer days.

Tennessee was a guitar / First big dream of mine / If I made it, yeah, that’d be just fine / I just wanted to play. I just wanted to play, but…

Carolina was a black car / A big white number three / California was a yellow jeep / Cruisin’ down Big Sur.

Georgia was a summer job / ‘Bama was a spring break / I got memories all over the place / But only one still hurts.

The opening lines of all four verses are Subject, verb, subject compliment, a sentence structure that typically doesn’t move anything forward, as it’s only equating the subject to the compliment. The fragments that follow all support the initial comparison, building on the same image or metaphor established by the full sentence. It has an awesome effect in this song because it drops a declaration at the begging of each verse, confidently telling us what comparison Aldean is making.

It’s especially powerful when the chorus comes sliding in…

Texas was green eyes crying goodbye / Was a long drive / A heartache I’m still trying to get through / Texas was you

…and we get three more “to be” verbs, three more comparisons, showing us why he’s making all these metaphorical connections. The setup for the chorus is great, and proves that even generally inactive sentences/verbs can be used bring the hammer of theme down onto the nails of details in your writing.

I can provide other examples if people are curious, but popular country is full of songs that are captivating listeners with clever lyrics with even cleverer grammar. If you’re struggling with edits, or need examples of structure and verb usage, or just how to arrange written elements to get people interested, fire up some Eric Church or Dierks Bently and getcher country on!

“Bend those strings until the Hank comes out.”

This post has nothing to do with math. It has to do with shapes. But the shapes of language, which are way cooler than, say, rhombuses. Rhombi. Bent rectangles. You get what I mean.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the term “parallel structure,” always imagining sets of parallel objects, like yellow lines on the road or meticulously laid chopsticks or some gymnastic beams. Parallel is one of those words that invokes strong mental images, probably because we are forced to memorize its definition as children during the same phase we learn shapes and spacial reasoning and how to not walk into walls all the time.

Parallel is important. It means separate but equal. Two paths that can never cross. Two dimensions that should never be mixed in case you accidentally meet your parallel-self and cause the universe to implode.

In writing it still means separate but equal, but your concepts should cross. Sort of.

While I would (and will) definitely argue that individual words can create parallelism, the real concept is based on parallel grammatical constructs. To achieve a balance in your language, establish a rhythm in your prose, you have to make sure all of your grammatical formations are in sync.

Think of a group of synchronized swimmers; if one is out of time with the others, doing some kicky move with her legs in the air while the rest of the swimmers are doing jazz-hands, the majesty and flow of the performance is ruined. Your writing functions the same way. If you throw in an off-note, an incorrect tense, a flat-out wrong verb form, your reader is going to notice. And probably not be happy.

What Parallelism Isn’t

If you’re used to reading pretty polished writing, you may not see a lot of examples of a-parallel structure. It’s something a lot of editors will catch in early drafts. Seeing the dissonance in action might help you understand (and ultimately kill) it. For example, this sentence is clearly not balanced correctly:

“Oliver loves brewing, drinking, and to pour beer on his head when he’s drunk.” (note: this may or may not be a nonfictional sentence)

That last infinitive form verb (to pour) breaks the pattern established by the two present participles (brewing, drinking). It just sounds…odd. While there is nothing necessarily wrong with that sentence, the lack of parallelism hurts the flow, and more importantly, the style.

This mistake can happen when a writer mentally builds a simple sentence (Oliver loves to pour beer on his head when he’s drunk) and then tacks on the present participles to add more context to the sentence. When you write, you want to make sure all of the grammatical parts of the same sentence are cut from the same hunk of verb:

“Oliver loves brewing, drinking, and pouring beer on his head when he’s drunk.” (And yes, I do realize this sentence implies that I enjoy brewing beer on my head)

Re-wording

While being a good manager of your grammatical employees is probably the most important part of parallelism, there are several other ways to use it to enhance your language or drop a little hardcore flair into your prose. Using duplicate words to create solidarity between two phrases is one of my favorites:

“The noises of the 56.6k modem were the heralds of my budding social life; each bleep and blarg and chzzzk-chzzzk got me closer to my friends, closer to that much coveted teenage popularity.” (This is a line from a piece I pitched to 20 Something Magazine)

By repeating closer, I’m connecting the second phrase to the first, but also building on the impact and emphasis of the first. This is a fun technique but writer beware: too much of this can annoy a reader and make your writing seem lazy and uninspired. Use this like Sriracha. A little squirt adds a lot of spice.

Chiasmus chasms

Another form comes to us from rhetoric: chiasmus. This literally translates from the Greek “khiasmos” which means simply, “cross.”

This is a form that is prevalent throughout spiritual texts (like the Bible and the Book of Mormon) as well as political speeches and public announcements. It’s a form you’re probably pretty familiar with, only because it stands out so strongly on the page (and lends itself so well to sound-bites):

“When everyone is famous, no one will be.”

Chiasmus follows traditional symbolic logic. The example above is ABAB, but it can follow almost any pattern that completes a logical loop:

ABBA: “You do not dance with the queen, the queen dances with you.”

ABCABC: “Refreshing like a lager, intoxicating like an ale.”

ABCCBA: “To relax is to be at peace, to be at peace is to be free.”

The most important thing about chiasmus is the correct balancing of the sentence. If one side is too heavy, or has an extra verb or preposition or clause, it ruins the effect. This device works well as a single line paragraph, a quick transition, or a way to really connect that baseball bat of emphasis to the knuckle ball of your theme.

Parallel application

All of this seems very artsy. That’s because it is. Parallel structure is a chance for you to play with your language, infuse it with the Frankenstenian extract that makes writing come to life. It gives your writing that je ne sais quoi, making it sound natural and effortless and, for lack of a more descriptive term, good.

There are many other ways to use parallel structure to improve your writing, like matching prepositional phrases (the boat on the beach near the house on the shore) or matching appositives (Hansel, the fearless brother, and Gretel, the benevolent sister). Using any of these comes down to intentionally building a sort of syncopation, where the pacing and structure and diction all work together to create sentences that almost sound like music.

The language is your sheet music. Your brain is the composer. Go make some literary music using parallel structure.

Railroad tracks are, pretty much be necessity, parallel.

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