Been working on the style and voicy stuff, and although I still have some work to do before bedding down, I'm all happy with my assignments and thought I'd inflict a little on you all.

Before I lob the ball, this is what I taught my grammar students down in Ecuador, and is perhaps the easiest way to teach grammar: in every basic sentence, there are three slots. Whenever you make a compound sentence of any kind, you double the number of slots per sentence (or more than double it if you are compounding more than one sentence). A basic example:

Root sentence: The dog ate my homework.

[slot 1] The dog [slot 2] ate my homework [slot 3].

Slot 1: While peeing on my rug, the dog ate my homework.

Slot 2: The dog greedily and noisily ate my homework.

Slot 2: The dog, a vicious bugger full of lice, ate my homework.

Slot 3: The dog ate my homework while peeing on my rug.

By using these three slots, you can usually grow a sentence almost endlessly large without actually making a compound sentence (two sentences joined with and/but/because/etc); instead, you just add information about the nouns or verbs.

Now... onwards. The two particular types of sentences we are talking about right now in Style and Voice are called "periodic" and "cumulative" (also called "running"). The gist of these two sentences is that the periodic sentence heavily utilizes Slots 1 and/or 2, whereas the cumulative sentence utilizes Slot 3 and/or compound sentencing. These two styles might really push the slot possibilities to the far extremes, and not just add a single phrase like the above examples.

By doing this, cumulative sentences seem to gain speed, rush forward, trace the edges of the mind in real-time, pile information forward, use language in positive repetition, whereas periodic sentences suspend the action for as long as possible to gain weight, mystery, anxiety, and so forth. Good stuff.

So, here's our assignment:

Write a letter to your neighbor explaining that you accidentally killed her pet. The letter should be six sentences long and follow this pattern: 1. periodic, 2. cumulative, 3. periodic loosening, 4. cumulative reversing to become periodic, 5. any architecture you wish—provided it’s 12 words long, 6. a compound statement in the “simple” Hemingway manner.

And here is my first stab at the task:

Dear Ms. Trotwiler,

Although, as I understand it, we have long shared a close (some say too close) communion, held together by the near tangency of our astrological signs—a ‘fact’ I have recently discovered, via some very gentle sifting of your slightly disheveled personal files, might not be as accurate as I had thought, being that you actually came into this world twenty-seven minutes after the time you had previously claimed, which puts you firmly into the seventh house of Mars rather than the heavenly Saturn you claimed—and although this communion has blessed me with some very transcendental opportunities to enjoy your hot tub while marveling at the very stars you claimed were present at your birth, I have to say I was dismayed when, without any warning, you chose to extend your trip. I am a busy person, and have many many chores to perform, not to mention the vast quantities of papers to read, write, or gestate upon under the guise of the added wisdom, and certainly not mentioning the three jobs I now keep at the gas station, the laundromat, and the Ihop just around the corner, a job which we both know I find loathsome, particularly when my manager asks me take the hours of Thomas, your son, who, even at ten years my senior, still smokes too much, well, let’s say ‘of something’ to always stumble in at precisely the hour he marks on the sheets.

Since, while under the excruciating agony of such a huge steaming pile of work, I made the admirable attempt to understand, or understand somewhat, how at your age, Florida—that blessed nation-unto-itself, which I’ve been told is warm and balmy with palm trees at this time of year—might have attracted you to extend your visit for three months, I am sure you will make a similar attempt to see what might have caused me to, with considerable trepidation, release Monsieur Tuft from the binding confines of his Victorian Wooden Dome Birdcage, and I’m very sorry indeed that he fled through the window, out past the Schmitt’s house, and onto the electrical wires before circling three times and settling to the ground under the rear of the cement mixer just three seconds before it produced the new Schmitt patio. He was a very unhappy bird without you, and I believe the mishap might have been something having to do with your mistaken stars, since as you know, Mars is the warrior planet and betides such conflicting times as those that might have just neared, but I really must say I am sure, or at least reasonably sure, that while being buried, quickly and without malice, underneath a mountainous pile of cement, might not have been the most agreeable way for Monsieur Tuft to die, at least I am certain he did not suffer long.

And I am most ready to admit that it might be unpleasant—perhaps unpleasant in way similar to gratuitously caring for another’s household items for three months while straining under at least seventy hours of work per week—for you to look out over the neighborhood and see the Schmitts happily gorging themselves on hamburgers and fudgesicles while the faint knob of Monsieur Tuft peers forlornly from his new perch, but I think you will probably survive. Let me know if you need this coupon I have for a free séance, as I would be happy to help you get in touch with Monsieur Tuft.

Sincerely,

Your Neighbor

Yep, only six sentences and I'm sure I've made some mistakes and it could be tightened or what not, but twas quite a bit of yippee.