The sentence pacing in “What the River Knows” by Lynne Curry is the connective tissue tying the narrative’s intentional lack of closure together. The hole is seamlessly felt as part of the fabric. This is seen from the very start.

“The river seizes us like a dog shaking a stick—teeth set, tail thrashing spray.
I jam my feet under the thwart and grip the grab line until my fingers burn.
The current jerks us sideways, icy water biting at my wrists.
The glare off the water blinds; the wind cuts sharp.
My hands ache.
My jaw locks.”

The tempo is as follows:

1. Simple (with an absolute phrase)

2. Complex

3. Simple (with a participial phrase) 

4. Compound

5. Simple

6. Simple

The intrinsic emphasis of simple sentences becomes accented in contrast to complex and compound ones. There is no risk of stamina loss with the latter either. The simple sentences provide pacing relief with just enough variety, despite being two-thirds of the first paragraph. This is due in part to the first two simple sentences having additional phrases. They act as a sort of space between simple and complex, which the last two simple sentences contrast by only having an independent clause.

There is also no compound-complex sentence present in the first paragraph. With simple sentences being one end of the spectrum and compound-complex sentences on the other, “What the River Knows” gravitates much closer to the former in general. The presentation is akin to a story told around a campfire; sentences that avoid going on for too long, preferring to linger with charred silence in the air.

Delving into the play-by-play, the first sentence is simple (with an absolute phrase) because it opens the story curtly. The narrator is in a group either floating on a river or being swallowed by one. There is a brief pause before the absolute phrase kicks in: the river is a dog, and the group is the stick. Even in the best-case scenario, everyone is still in danger. The sentence ends there, giving the audience time to process before moving on.

Although it only has one clause, the first sentence’s absolute phrase makes it the longest in the paragraph. The pacing also resembles riding on rapid water. The em dash and comma after the independent clause contribute to a sense of a boat lifting into the air. There is a pause before hitting the water on the way back down, followed by a second (smaller) impact as the boat settles back in.

The second sentence is complex because it provides a fluid context. “I jam my feet under the thwart” indicates the narrator is actually on a boat of some kind, and “grip the grab line until my fingers burn” confirms that, while giving us a point of reference for the narrator’s durability. The lack of punctuation allows for smooth communication. The transition from a simple to a complex sentence adds distinct variety in pacing.

This all simulates a moment of relative calm on the water. There is no friction through punctuation. It is a moment to catch breath and steel nerves. It is also a total of sixteen words, which still ends up as a slightly shorter length than the previous sentence’s fifteen (within the parameters of the English language, at least).

It is worth noting that the period between these two sentences can be removed for even faster pacing (at the cost of diverted emphasis).

While this hypothetical sentence…

“As the river seizes us like a dog shaking a stick — teeth set, tail thrashing spray — I jam my feet under the thwart and grip the grab line until my fingers burn” 

… communicates the same information as these two sentences (word-for-word, except the first one), the lack of a pause with no period in between only results in emphasis on the absolute phrase.

When removing the absolute phrase…

“As the river seizes us like a dog shaking a stick, I jam my feet under the thwart and grip the grab line until my fingers burn”

… the partial answer (e.g., the narrator is firmly on a boat) immediately follows the implicit questions posed (e.g., how much danger the narrator is in with the river), rather than letting the audience briefly sit with the latter first. This is mainly due to the subordinating conjunction starting the fronted adverbial.

When reversing the fronted adverbial…

“I jam my feet under the thwart as the river seizes us like a dog shaking a stick and grip the grab line until my fingers burn”

… the dog simile interjects awkwardly. To improve pacing, another first-person pronoun would be needed to recontextualize the second dependent clause as a second independent one.

When converting this to a compound-complex sentence…

“I jam my feet under the thwart as the river seizes us like a dog shaking a stick, and I grip the grab line until my fingers burn”

… the partial answer is given before the implicit question is asked. This is especially important to consider since the first paragraph does not provide all of the initial answers. The audience is meant to have questions gradually answered, so emphasis on these questions that set the scene is prioritized in the original text.

The third sentence (eleven words) is simple (with a participial phrase) because it gives the last piece of narrative information in the paragraph before focusing on sensory detail. The independent clause (“The current jerks us sideways”) provides direction for the narrator’s group, while the participial phrase (“icy water biting at my wrists”) lets the audience feel the turn. The pause after “the current jerks us sideways” directly simulates the shift of the group’s direction, too.

The fourth sentence (ten words) is compound because it flows well from the previous two simple sentences — specifically, the absolute and participial phrases. An independent clause followed by a phrase, or vice versa, acts as a one-two punch. This sentence acts as two slower, but heavier punches — lead and rear hooks instead of jabs and crosses — due to the semicolon connecting both independent clauses. It could also be two simple sentences with a period in between. This would cut into the purpose of the last two sentences, though.

The fifth and sixth sentences (three words each) are both simple because they punctuate the first paragraph as a whole. Each sentence in this paragraph is shorter than the one before, and each sentence is slower after the second one. This is not by coincidence.

Stripping down sentence length to focus on the bare essentials mirrors the narrator’s fight-or-flight perspective. The progressively slower pacing also mirrors the narrator’s adrenaline-fueled perception of time — otherwise known as tachypsychia (colloquially referred to as “The Zone” or “Flow State”): the brain processing sensory details in overdrive, dilating time so it feels longer than normal.

As the only simple sentences without an additional phrase in the paragraph, the bluntness of “my hands ache” and “my jaw locks” is emphasized, too.

If this were the story’s opening, the implied question of “why” could carry the introduction’s momentum. The cost would be the loss of context that fleshes out the weight of both descriptions. For example, “grip the grab line until my fingers burn” indicates potential rope burn, while “the wind cuts sharp” is a contributing factor to the narrator’s body tensing up, and by extension, jaw.

By appearing at the end of the first paragraph instead, the physical toll on the narrator is reinforced, and the audience sits with this in the paragraph break.

Paragraph breaks indicate a pause, and “What the River Knows” uses them a lot, resulting in slower overall pacing. In exchange, reading generally becomes easier to process since words become easier to find. This is due to white space, the unwritten sections of a page.

The less white space there is, the faster words are read. In exchange, there is a higher risk that the audience will not process what is being read. This can manifest as a compulsion to skim or briefly zone out without realizing it.

The second paragraph of the story further counters these tendencies by being a single sentence fragment:

“Two rafts, ten bodies.”

A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence missing an independent clause. They are a heightened version of simple sentences, the slowest and most emphasized form. Overuse of this results in easily sounding overdramatic, so it requires careful consideration.

After three sentences of sensory detail, “two rafts, ten bodies” works as a sentence fragment for providing essential context to the narrator’s situation (how many people are present; what is being used to traverse the river) along with correlating to the previous paragraph’s rhythm.

The exterior of this sentence fragment is slower than the first paragraph’s decreasing speed. The length is short, and a comma is in the middle. This brings the time dilation to its slowest point.

The interior of this sentence fragment parallels the word count of the previous two sentences (three words each — “my hands ache. My jaw locks”). There are two words before and after the comma. The choice to use one instead of a period implicitly points to these sentences while being faster than the speed of both combined. This allows the slower sentence fragment to feel faster than it is.

Meanwhile, the eighth and ninth paragraphs play with time in a reversed direction from the first and second:

“Clint. Mayer.
Three months of depositions. Evidence reports. Photos clipped to files.
Their typed signatures at the bottom of lies.
I’ve read their names a hundred times. I’d never heard their voices until last night.”

The narrator’s realization unfolds in real time. The names come first, followed by remembering the effort involved in recording their moves. Full sentences return in the final stage of the realization: no amount of preparation could have prepared the narrator to suddenly face them. Tachypsychia ends as the shock wears off and the story fully begins

Everything here sets the tempo for the story’s dilemma. The craft involved in doing so ultimately boils down to a trained intuition. Microscale decisions are usually unconscious, at least with an initial draft. To be fully conscious all the time is a Sisyphean task.

“What the River Knows” is proof that Lynne Curry’s internal metronome has been forged by trial and error. It is the culmination of what has been found to work and not work: the former category emerging as dominant.

“The river looks deceptively open here—wide bends, slate-green water sliding past spruce and gravel bar, but underneath it runs hard and fast, impatient with anything that hesitates.”