On Writing a Perfect Paragraph

Time is Running Out for Mine

A single, flawless paragraph—that’s what I yearn to achieve. Imagine spending an hour (or even three) at the keyboard, meticulously crafting the exquisite opening lines of a short story. My verb tenses will be impeccable, and every plural will be correctly spelled. In essence, my goal is to create a piece of writing that is devoid of glaring errors. When I’m finished, I’ll have left words and punctuation so precise that the reader will be utterly captivated and drawn into the narrative. I want the words in that first paragraph to be so exceptional that any reader will be instantly intrigued and eager to discover what follows.

But…

I’ll never write a paragraph like that. Why? Because I was a total mess in grade school and high school. Sometimes, I can recall a memory or experience that sparks an intriguing premise, but the mechanics of my writing the tale down just causes me to freeze. The only grammar that has stuck with me is what I learned in my three years of high school Latin. I remember the nominative and ablative cases, and the pluperfect tense. So what? If I had paid more attention to my seventh and eighth-grade English instructors, I would be a formidable writer. Unfortunately, the style and structure that the ancient Romans used to express their thoughts don’t translate well to the modern rules of writing.

Note well, I have read perfect paragraphs and pages of perfect paragraphs strung together. Ken Kesey’s first page or two of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, is just perfect. The last paragraph of The Remains of the Day is so unbelievable in its perfection. I think the latter is in many ways more perfect for it pulls together a hundred threads of thought and feeling that were loose throughout the narrative and ties them all up with a big bright bow of crisp, carefully selected words.

Yeah, I want to write a perfect paragraph.

Here is what I believe is an example of several perfect paragraphs strung together. These are the first three paragraphs of James Hiltion's Goodbye Mr. Chips.

“When you are getting on in years (but not ill, of course), you get very sleepy at times, and the hours seem to pass like lazy cattle moving across a landscape. It was like that for Chips as the autumn term progressed and the days shortened till it was actually dark enough to light the gas before call-over. For Chips, like some old sea captain, still measured time by the signals of the past; and well he might, for he lived at Mrs. Wickett's, just across the road from the School. He had been there more than a decade, ever since he finally gave up his mastership; and it was Brookfield far more than Greenwich time that both he and his landlady kept. "Mrs. Wickett," Chips would sing out, in that jerky, high-pitched voice that had still a good deal of sprightliness in it, "you might bring me a cup of tea before prep, will you?”

When you are getting on in years it is nice to sit by the fire and drink a cup of tea and listen to the school bell sounding dinner, call-over, prep, and lights-out. Chips always wound up the clock after that last bell; then he put the wire guard in front of the fire, turned out the gas, and carried a detective novel to bed. Rarely did he read more than a page of it before sleep came swiftly and peacefully, more like a mystic intensifying of perception than any changeful entrance into another world. For his days and nights were equally full of dreaming.

He was getting on in years (but not ill, of course); indeed, as Doctor Merivale said, there was really nothing the matter with him. "My dear fellow, you're fitter than I am," Merivale would say, sipping a glass of sherry when he called every fortnight or so. "You're past the age when people get these horrible diseases; you're one of the few lucky ones who're going to die a really natural death. That is, of course, if you die at all. You're such a remarkable old boy that one never knows." But when Chips had a cold or when east winds roared over the fenlands, Merivale would sometimes take Mrs. Wickett aside in the lobby and whisper: "Look after him, you know. His chest... it puts a strain on his heart. Nothing really wrong with him— only anno domini, but that's the most fatal complaint of all, in the end."