specific writing

Normally I celebrate standout marketing writing. But this week I’m sharing a line from a novel I’m reading. It’s simple. It’s compact. And it’s perfect: “His skin was not just clammy but the color and consistency of actual clams.” —Ann Patchett, Bel Canto Ann is describing a Bel Canto character—a Russian bureaucrat named Fyodorov. I read that line Monday night and I literally LOLed. That sentence is now in my head. (It’s moved in. Possibly vacationing there.) I keep remembering it at odd moments (in line at the checkout, in the middle of a meeting). And I laugh suddenly and quietly. Yesterday I was picking out grapes in the supermarket when I thought of it and smiled. A woman across the produce aisle looked at me and then at the grapes, like the grapes had said something funny. Anyhoo… Let’s break down the science of why this sentence from Ann […]