Starting with What Matters, Part 10: Joyce Carol Oates

So much happens in Joyce Carol Oates's sentences. Take these two from the first paragraph of her article "Kid Dynamite: Mike Tyson Is the Most Exciting Heavyweight Fighter Since Muhammad Ali" (Life, March 1987):

If Tyson takes away the World Boxing Council heavyweight title from thirty-three-year-old Trevor Berbick, as he promised to do, he will become the youngest champion in the sport's recorded history. He will fulfill the prophecy made by Cus d'Amato, his boxing trainer, mentor, and guardian, that he would one day break the record of another of D'Amato's prodigies, Floyd Patterson, who won the title shortly before his twenty-second birthday in 1956.

Oates makes a lot of rhetorical choices with these 75 words. Here are just five of them:

1. She writes long sentences (33 and 42 words). Forget about the so-called experts who tell us to limit sentence length to 15 words. They have not written enough to issue such an order, and if they have, they continually break their own rule. Oates's sentences are pretty.
2. She uses a colloquial verb instead of a more formal one apparently befitting a writer of her stature. Oates writes If Tyson takes away the World Boxing Council heavyweight title, instead of If Tyson wins or attains. But she is writing about the "sweet science" of boxing, which is loaded with hyperbole and slang. Ayn Rand admonishes writers to let their subject matter dictate their word choice.  
3. She suspends the base clause of the first sentence by 21 words (he will become the youngest champion). Joseph M. Williams, author of Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace, and others created an Eight-Word Test, which basically says that a clear subject and verb should arrive no later than eight words into the sentence. Those authors violate the very tip they endorse in their explanation of it. Oates is fearless in letting 21 words pass before her subject; she correctly trusts her readers can follow her narrative. 
4. She gives possession to a nonliving thing (sport's recorded history). Narrow-minded grammar snobs will tell us that we can give possession only to people and animals, but not to inanimate objects. They would tell Oates to write the recorded history of the sport, but this is why she is a great writer and they are narrow-minded grammar snobs.
5. She uses 33 words of that second 42-word sentence simply to qualify D'Amato's prediction. She suspends the sentence at mid point to add greater value to Cus D'Amato, not only as a foreseer but as a force in Tyson's life. Of course, Oates could have written, "He will fulfill the prophecy made by Cus d'Amato that he would one day break the record Floyd Patterson, who won the title shortly before his twenty-second birthday in 1956. D'Amato is Tyson's boxing trainer, mentor, and guardian, and Patterson is another of D'Amato's prodigies." But now we have a longer 45 words in 2 sentences and a sequencing problem that slows down the narrative line. Her sentence shines in its depiction of history and human relationship.

If you want to develop your writing skills, study the sentences of Joyce Carol Oates, who has her singular way of starting with what matters.