Category: A Line from a Novel

L is for a Line I Like in a Novel

After a challenging couple of letters this week in the 2017 A to Z Blog Challenge, I am happy to arrive on Day 12 and the letter “L.” It has become my routine to blog once-a-month about a line I like from a novel, so that is what I get to do today.

I like some sentences in novels because they make me think. Some make me see things in a new light – from another perspective. I like others because of the exquisite word choices made by the author. I like others because they paint a picture. When I come upon a sentence that grabs my attention, I jot it down in my notebook. I want to be able to read it again and again.

Mrs. Lee & Mrs. Gray, by Dorothy Love

One such line is the following sentence from Mrs. Lee & Mrs. Gray, by Dorothy Love:

“How much of life is by one simple moment decided.”

This was a thought by Mary Custis Lee as she reflected on a disagreement she’d had with her new husband, Robert E. Lee.

The sentence prompted me to stop and think. Indeed, “how much of life is by one simple moment decided.”

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.

Janet

F is for Jamie Fraser

This is the sixth day of the 2017 A to Z Blog Challenge, so I am featuring the letter “F” in today’s post. Every month I blog about a favorite line from a novel. Today I shine a light on a FAVORITE line from the novel THE FIERY CROSS, by Diana Gabaldon.

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It is the last line in the book, and it is spoken by the heart throb of Ms. Gabaldon’s Outlander Series, JAMIE FRASER.

“’When the day shall come, that we do part,’ he said softly, and turned to look at me, ‘if my last words are not ‘I love you’ – ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.’”

Whew!

I wish I’d written that!

Until my next blog post tomorrow

I hope you have a good book to read. If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.

Janet

A Paragraph I Like from a Novel by Ann B. Ross

Ann B. Ross constructed a wonderful and hilarious paragraph in one of her novels, Miss Julia Delivers the Goods. I usually write about a sentence I like from a novel in my second blog post each month, but this paragraph of three sentences was just too good to pass up.

Miss Julia Delivers the Goods

First, to set the scene,

Mr. Pickens has expressed his regret that Hazel Marie is sick and asks Miss Julia if Hazel Marie is getting better. Hazel Marie’s teenage son is present. The son and Mr. Pickens don’t know that the unwed Hazel Marie is pregnant, although Mr. Pickens is the father of the baby. As only Miss Julia can, she replies to Mr. Pickens’ question as follows:

“ʻIt’ll be a long, drawn-out recuperation period, though – a few months, the doctor said. She’s lost a lot of weight, too, but we expect her to put a good deal back on real soon. Why, you might not even recognize her by springtime, but then she’ll level back to her normal size.’”

If that doesn’t strike you as being funny, I’m sorry I misled you. Perhaps the entire story leading up to the quote needs to be read for it to be appreciated. Ann B. Ross has written 19 books about Miss Julia, a fictional elderly Southern lady, and I believe the next installment will be released in April. If you’re looking for some good small-town Southern humor, Ann B. Ross is your author.

Until my next blog post

I hope you have a good book to read. If you’re a writer, I hope you have quality writing time.

Janet

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Two Lines I Like from a Margaret Maron Novel

“Trees and thick shrubbery hid most of the track from view and muffled the noises in summer, but in winter, when Dwight was a boy and the wind was right, the train whistle could be heard at night all the way out to the farm. A lonesome sound, yet somehow, oddly comforting.” — From Long Upon the Land (A Deborah Knott Mystery), by Margaret Maron.

These two sentences make me smile. I took hearing the Southern Railway train whistles for granted all my life until last year when the at-grade rail crossings in our town were closed and replaced by bridges. This was done to make way for “the high-speed rail” between Charlotte and Raleigh. There is no longer a need for the train whistle in Harrisburg. Twenty-five trains now almost silently pass through the small town every day. I miss that whistle.

The North Carolina Railroad

The North Carolina Railroad first laid rail lines through Harrisburg in 1854. In fact, the town came into existence because a depot was built when the railroad came. Although I lived five miles from town, I could often hear the train whistle. I could lie in bed at night and hear it. It sounded particularly close if weather conditions were just right or there was snow on the ground.

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Margaret Maron summed up my feelings about the train whistle. “A lonesome sound, yet somehow, oddly comforting.” I wish I’d written that sentence. Hearing a train whistle in the quiet wee hours of the night always made me feel that way. I would think about the passengers on the train. Was the train going north to Washington, DC and New York City, or was it going south to Atlanta and New Orleans? The trains were going somewhere and I wasn’t. Sometimes I envied the people on those trains, but mostly I just felt comfort in knowing that even though I was in my nice warm bed a few miles away life was moving on.

The Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway

There is another rail line just a couple of miles in the other direction from my house. The Aberdeen Carolina & Western Railway operates one train per day on that line. For the near future, at least, I will be able to hear that train whistle because there is no bridge to carry vehicular traffic over the line. No doubt, that whistle will eventually become obsolete. Train whistles are going the way of the little red caboose.

I am privileged to live on land that has been in my family since the mid-1700s. I come from a long line of farmers. I wonder how my great-great-grandparents felt the first time they saw or heard a train go through Harrisburg in 1854. How exciting the advent of the locomotive in our community must have been for my eight-year-old great-grandfather!

Space Travel

Ironically, I was eight years old when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the first manned Mercury spacecraft in 1961. The 15-minute suborbital flight piloted by Alan B. Shepard, Jr. was a milestone for the United States. Although I didn’t see the launch in person, I loved seeing the pictures on TV and in newspapers and magazines. It was a great time to be a child!

Who knew a couple of sentences from Margaret Maron in Long Upon the Land would bring such thoughts to my mind? That’s the magic of fiction!

Your favorite line(s) from a novel

Do you have a favorite line or two from a novel? Feel free to share in the comments section.

Until the next time I blog

Until the next time I blog, I hope you have a good book to read. If you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time. I invite you to share my blog post on social media by using the icons below or recommend it to your friends.

Janet

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A line I like from a novel by Anthony Doerr

“His voice was low and soft, a piece of silk you might keep in a drawer and pull out only on rare occasions, just to feel it between your fingers.” – from All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

The source of the sentence

That is Marie-Laure describing her great-uncle in All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. It would be a beautiful piece of imagery even if Marie-Laure were not blind. Knowing she cannot see with her eyes gives the sentence a deeper meaning.

What does this sentence make me do?

As a reader, it makes me shut my eyes and pretend I have a piece of silk to gently rub between my fingers. What a clever way to describe the heightened hearing of a person without sight!

As a lover of rich prose, the sentence makes me stop and read it again.

As a writer, it makes me grab a pen and write it in my writer’s notebook so I can revisit it any time I want to.

Pro or Con?

If you’ve followed my blog very long, you know I’m not a fast reader. Perhaps my noticing this particular line from Pulitzer Prize winner All the Light We Cannot See is a benefit of being a slow reader — something I’ve always considered a fault.

Until my next blog post . . .

I hope you have a good book to read. If you’re a writer, I wish you productive writing time.

Janet

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A Quote from an Author — Lee Smith

I try to blog a quote from an author once a month. Today’s quote is taken from Lee Smith’s autobiographical book, Dimestore:  A Writer’s Life:

“For a writer cannot pick her material any more than she can pick her parents; her material is given to her by circumstances of her birth, by how she first hears language.” — Lee Smith

Dimestore: A Writer's Life

While working to identify my author brand recently, I came to appreciate that quote from Lee Smith even more than when I first read it and was immediately prompted to write it down in my writer’s notebook.

I invite you to follow my blog and to follow me on social media by using the icons to the right. I welcome you to share this blog post by clicking on the social media icons below.

Until my next blog post, I hope you have a good book to read and, if you’re a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.

Janet

A Line I Like from a Novel

Once in a while, I come across a line that I especially like in a novel I’m reading. I like to showcase one of those sentences in a blog post once-a-month. It’s my way of illustrating how good writing doesn’t just happen. Sometimes my attention is grabbed by a phrase or just a word in a sentence. When this happens, I make a note of it in my writer’s notebook.

Redemption Road, by John Hart

“Tapping on the door, Elizabeth waited as fabric whispered behind the screen, and her mother appeared.” — Redemption Road, from John Hart

My “Take” on this line

It wouldn’t have occurred to me to write “as fabric whispered behind the screen,” but the phrase John Hart crafted paints an audible picture. I know exactly what Elizabeth heard as she waited after tapping the door.

What you can do

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Until my next blog, I hope you have a good book to read. If you are a writer, I hope you have productive writing time.

Janet

A Line from Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith

It is one of those lines I wish I had written. There is a saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” In this case, 22 words can conjure up many mental pictures.

“Their moral compass had been neglected for so long that it spun out of control:  north was south and east was west.” That is a memorable line from Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith. (Incidentally, I wrote about my general impressions of Child 44 in my October 4, 2016 blog post, What I read in September.)

The 2016 US Presidential Election

That line from Child 44 was written about two fictional Russian characters in 1953, but they could have just as easily been penned about the 2016 US Presidential election. Truth became a casualty of this race a long 16 months ago. The election will be over in a few days. The fallout from the divisive campaign rhetoric will not quietly go away. But I digress.

Clever writing

A moral compass that has lost its bearings and is spinning out of control is a great visual. I had an inexpensive compass to play with when I was child. I would try to confuse it by turning it so when pointing to magnetic north it would point toward the “S” but I could never trick that compass. No matter what I did to it, I could not make it spin out of control. I could not make it settle on any direction but magnetic north.

One’s moral compass is more fragile and less dependable than a magnetic north compass. We have all heard of people who have lost their moral compass and committed violent crimes. The use of abusive language and mean-spirited lies (such as we have been subjected to in this year’s US Presidential election) also fall into this category. It is a sad and frightening thing to be exposed to a person who has lost his or her way.

“Their moral compass had been neglected for so long that it spun out of control:  north was south and east was west.” Sentences like that don’t happen in literature by happenstance. As an aspiring novelist, I look for such sentences when I read. Writers are taught not to write a sentence that will take the reader out of the story, but I can’t help but notice and appreciate certain phrases and sentences crafted by other writers.

Until my next blog post, I hope you have a good book to read. If you are a writer, I hope you have quality writing time. And if you are so inclined, please share my blog by clicking on one of the social media icons below.

Janet