The Music of Words

"The corpse without hands lay in the bottom of a small sailing dinghy drifting just within sight of the Suffolk coast. It was the body of a middle-aged man, a dapper little cadaver, its shroud a dark pin-striped suit which fitted the narrow body as elegantly in death as it had in life. The hand-made shoes still gleamed except for some scruffing of the toe caps, the silk tie was knotted under the prominent Adam’s apple. He had dressed with careful orthodoxy for the town, this hapless voyager; not for this lonely sea; nor for this death.

(Unnatural Causes - P.D.James)

Another great opening scene, this one by the British writer who uses murder mysteries to explore the depth and range of human emotion. The description is simple, precise, and elegant.

Great Heart

Eyes closed, I sat in my reading chair lost in the world of J.R.R.Tolkien's The Return of the King, audio version. Frodo and Sam trudged desperately up the Mountain of Doom, the weight of the ring growing ever heavier. All seemed lost. Then, amid images of pain and terror, came one simple sentence: "Great heart will not be denied." I took a deep breath with Frodo, and we climbed on.

Why is this small sentence the only one I can recite from the thousands in the trilogy? Why did it move me to tears and hope, not just for Frodo and Sam but for us all? Its power lies in its starkness, its brevity, the directness with which it lifts us up out of the muck and makes us go on. The short, ordinary words aim at us like battle spears. The consonance of the final t's in great, heart, and not and the double-d of denied cement the promise of the sentence. In six short words, the fate of the world has turned.

If you doubt the power of short, ordinary words, consider one way an amateur writer might have captured the moment: "Having courage and working passionately toward your goals will be rewarded." It's just not the same.