brawler
“Now her hands knifed into the water, her body threading after, and there was no splash, she could feel the downward gulp of the water.”
—LAUREN GROFF, “BRAWLER” FROM BRAWLER
Why it’s beautiful
Most writing advice says:
Not to repeat words in a sentence, unless they line up one after the other, or in some other poetic fashion
Not to splice commas
Yet here, we get water twice in one sentence, and there was no splash, she could feel the downward gulp.
There’s your permission, your reminder, to play and break the rules.
Lauren also personifies the water, giving it a human trait by describing its “gulp.” And when describing the diver, the hands are like knives and the body’s like a thread. I’ve known about personification as a literary device, but today I learned there’s a word for the reverse: chremamorphism.