Parallelism: The Tightest Beat

Just for fun, here's a definition:
parallel structure: in writing, refers to identical grammatical structures that add rhythm and balance to images.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Why is it important for images to have balance and rhythm? What difference does that make?"

Look at this:

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears, and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call...THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

Rod Serling wrote this, and it was read at the beginning of each episode of The Twilight Zone. The parallelism adds a rhythm to it that is so mesmerizing, that people still remember it and can recite it to this day. It has also been imitated many times, as for instance, in the movie 12 Monkeys: Between the past and the future, between sanity and madness, between dreams and reality, lies the mystery of the 12 Monkeys.

Parallelism is not so much about grammatical correctness, as it is about something sounding good. As writers, we should use the structures of our language to create rhythm, sort of like a background beat.

For this post, I want you to find a good example of parallelism. Now, don't panic, because you can't get this wrong. Well, unless you don't do it...but that's not going to happen. You need to look for passages that you've read, or heard, that have something about them that repeats. It could be a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a structure that appears over and over, adding that little something extra special, beyond the words themselves: rhythm.

Famous Last Words

Supposedly...
Caesar said, "Et tu, Brute?"
John Quincy Adams said, "This is all there is of earth! I am content!"
Doc Holliday said, "This is funny."
Beethoven said, "Friends applaud! The comedy is over."
Poe said, "Lord help my poor soul."

These are rumored to be the famous last words of these historical figures, uttered as they died. It could be said that Caesar's are the most famous, and maybe the most heartbreaking. He was speaking to his friend, Marcus Brutus, who had taken part in the conspiracy to murder Caesar. This man was close to Caesar, and as he fell, Caesar looked at his friend, and said, "And you, Brutus?" He couldn't believe that Brutus was involved. His last thoughts, if this account is true, were of how his friend betrayed him so horribly. To this day, those words, "Et tu, Brute?" are used often when people are discussing betrayal. They were so powerful that they have become part of our language.

Last words are tremendously important, for many reasons. I often think about the last words that I said to my grandfather. When it's said and done, last words are all that there is, really. When writers end a novel or a story, just as when they open them, they have to think carefully about what they will leave their reader with. Opening lines have to hook a reader, while closing words have to satisfy, and they have to resonate (This is one of my favorite words. Look it up if you don't know it.)

What's one of the best closings you've ever read?

First Lines First

Sometimes, you can tell a book is going to be really great just by the first one or two sentences. Good authors know this, and they put a lot of thought into picking just the right words to open their work with.

Catherine Bowen said, "For your born writer, there is nothing so healing as the realization that he or she has come upon the right words."

What's the best opening you've ever read??