It’s easy to read a story and swoon over how beautifully it’s written.
What’s harder is breaking down exactly what makes those sentences so beautifully written in the first place.
But let’s go ahead and do it anyway! By taking a look at examples from “The Lightning Tree” by Patrick Rothfuss.
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we do a stream about “The Lightning Tree and how to write beautiful sentences.”
Watch the full video here for context for the quotes, or scroll down for highlights.
- “The Lightning Tree” is a short story by Patrick Rothfuss set in the same world as The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man’s Fear.
- It follows the story of a side character, Bast, a fae creature who disguises himself as a human and lives with the main character, a retired legendary warrior/wizard, at an inn.
- Even if you know nothing about the books, it’s still a wonderfully- written story, and a lot of that has to do with its beautiful sentences.
OBVIOUSLY there’s more to writing beautiful sentence than just this, but it’s a good place to start, and a good road map to help realign ourselves. So let’s take a look at some!
#1. Opening
The back door’s hinges creaked sometimes, depending on their mood, but that was easy to work around. Bast shifted his grip on the latch, lifted up so that the door’s weight didn’t hang so heavy, then eased it slowly closed. No creak. The swinging door was softer than a sigh.
Bast stood upright and grinned. His face was sweet and sly and wild. He looked like a naughty child who had managed to steal the moon and eat it.
What we can learn: Beautiful sentences are made by zooming in. Get as close as possible to whatever you’re describing, and describe in a way that you’ve never heard before.
#2. Start of Main Story
At the top stood what the children called the lightning tree, though these days it was little more than a branchless trunk barely taller than a man. All the bark had long since fallen away, and the sun had bleached the wood as white as bone. All except the very top, where even after all these years the wood was charred a jagged black.
What we can learn: Beautiful sentences use vivid verbs over adjectives. And when they do use adjectives, they’re usually used in new/unique ways.
#3. The Mystery Begins
Finally Bast turned to look the boy over. He was no more than eight or nine, well dressed, and plumper than most of the other town’s children. He carried a wad of white cloth in his hand. The boy swallowed nervously.
“I need a lie.”
Bast nodded. “What sort of lie?”
What we can learn: Beautiful sentences can be very brief. They aren’t long for the sake of being long. They say exactly what they need to say, no more.
#4. Talking with the Boy
But honestly, he liked the boy. He wasn’t dull, or easy. He wasn’t mean or low. He pushed back. He was funny and grim and hungry and more alive than any three other people in the town all put together. He was bright as broken glass and sharp enough to cut himself. And Bast too, apparently.
What we can learn: Beautiful sentences can be playful and witty, having double meanings or setting up little payoffs.
#5. Upping the Stakes
“I just can’t fix this on my own.” Rike looked up, eyes full of tears. His face was twisted in a knot of anger and fear. A boy too young to keep from crying, but still old enough so that he couldn’t help but hate himself for doing it. “I need you to get rid of my da,” he said in a broken voice.
What we can learn: Beautiful sentences are applicable to the broader world, commenting on society/culture.
#6. Visiting the Mother
“Ah. Well,” he said awkwardly, pulling his gaze up to meet her eye. “I was wondering, ma’am. That is, Mrs. Williams—”
“Nettie is fine, Bast,” she said indulgently. More than a few of the townfolk considered Bast somewhat simple in the head, a fact that Bast didn’t mind in the least.
“Nettie,” Bast said, smiling his most ingratiating smile. There was a pause, and she leaned against the doorframe. A little girl peeked out from around the woman’s faded blue skirt, nothing more than a pair of serious dark eyes.
What we can learn: Beautiful sentences say a lot by saying a little.
#7. Talking with Mother
“How about yourself?” Bast asked, giving his most charming smile. “Is there anything around the place you could use a hand with?” Nettie smiled at Bast indulgently. It was only a small smile, but it stripped ten years and half a world of worry off her face, making her practically shine with loveliness.
*What we can learn: Beautiful sentences show you so clearly what is happening that you can feel it inside of you.
#8. Talking to the Boy
Bast blinked, confused. “She’ll wear it because you gave it to her,” he said.
“What if she doesn’t?” he asked.
Bast opened his mouth, then hesitated and closed it again. He looked up and saw the first of twilight’s stars emerge. He looked down at the boy. He sighed. He wasn’t good at this.
So much was so easy. Glamour was second nature. It was just making folk see what they wanted to see. Fooling folk was simple as singing. Tricking folk and telling lies, it was like breathing.
But this? Convincing someone of the truth that they were too twisted to see? How could you even begin?
It was baffling. These creatures. They were fraught and frayed in their desire. A snake would never poison itself, but these folk made an art of it. They wrapped themselves in fears and wept at being blind. It was infuriating. It was enough to break a heart.
What we can learn: Beautiful sentences do all of the above at once.
Chat then voted on two situations that we would write beautiful sentences for. Here’s what they chose, along with some highlighted sentences:
Topic #1: An engineer visits a planet that they terraformed.
SIXSIXseve_N: The canyon greeted her like a friend one has feelings for, familiar in all ways but the intimacy of touch. Today, she would cross that barrier, finally stepping foot on what she’d created.
Joe_g89: He knelt down on the soil and whispered “I’m home,” and the planet quaked.
bobicus_: My eyes alit upon the sterile cities that had invaded my wet eden, and cursed the snake who begat the Fall.
EricaDeel: Take my life as you suckle at my breast. Take my breath as your skies, my hair as your fields of wheat. Take all of me—then let me be, living as your planetary eyes.
RealSayakaMaizono: Sunlight trickled down, met the treeline in open combat, and was swallowed whole.
henryof7898: God had really outdone himself here.
insrtwittyname: The lake of sulfur burned blue and crystalline; she imagined an angel chained over it: skeletal wings sweeping the surface, rusted links clinking in small movements, his eyes open and blank, staring at the liquid like he could see his own reflection in its fire.
ZionXCX: The lake stubbornly held onto its orange hue, but he knew how to persuade it to embrace change.
xenonquark996: I, lifebringer, touched the barren soil, wet with tears.
Topic #2: A chemist watches a droplet of solution dry.
Joe_g89: He gazed into the droplet of solution and glimpsed the world.
SIXSIXseve_N: And so they dried together; the last drop of his life’s work, and the remaining moisture in the husk of his corpse.
bobicus_: A million unseen jailbreaks, the toxic solvent wriggling from its polymer bonds and into the free air. I was only interested in the cages left behind.
gameon123321: Isopropyl molecules smash through the surface, traitor to their globular shelter. Water molecules scurry to fill the holes, pulling the surface ever smaller.
ZionXCX: The solutes collapsed together, seeking comfort in each other as their world evaporated around them.
RealSayakaMaizono: A forced marriage of mortal enemies, met within the confines of the flask; their arena, yet a spectacle for their captors.
defminerva13: The solution dried and crusted under her eyelids making her pupils shrink and grow, red veins branching, extending, taking her mind elsewhere as designed.
EricaDeel: The rowdy children of the watery world fought against the slap of cold that sought to restrain them in their time-out places.
insrtwittyname: The droplet receded into itself, imploding like a dying star in slow motion, until all that was left was a salty surface and a sweet scent of dying flowers.
Be sure to check out the video for more!
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you join us on Twitch.
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
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