A Snapshot of You: Writing a Cultural Vignette

The Brush Strokes

For Harry Noden, writing is an art form that takes time, patience, and layers in order to complete a piece. To better explain his ideas behind writing, he developed five basic "brush strokes" to guide writers as they paint pictures with their words. By adding brush strokes into writing, authors can really show, rather than tell, their audiences exactly what they want them to understand from a certain sentence or paragraph, and the audience can therefore get a clear image of exactly what's going on in any particular scene or story. 

Stroke One: Painting with Participial Phrases

Purpose: Adds motion to an otherwise dull and lifeless sentence.
Definition: A participle is an "-ing" or "-ed" word, or phrase, tacked on to the beginning or the end of a sentence.
See also: Grammar Girl on Participles vs. Gerunds 
Examples: Twirling, grunting, swerveing, fidgeting, giggling, exhausted, enthused, bewildered

Twirling on her toes, the dancer electrified the audience.
The dancer becomes alive to the audience, who can picture themselves in the crowd, watching the dancer twirl round and round.

Tumbling uncontrollably, the basket toppled down the hill.
The basket is pulling motion into the sentence.
 

Stroke Two: Absolutes

Purpose: Adds a zoom lens for embellishment of the details of a sentence.
Definition: Noun + verb in the present or past participle form. 
Examples: Claws scratching, teeth tearing, the kitten made his was into the unopened bag of food.
Sweat beading, teeth clenched, the brain surgeon cut into the skull.
Mouth watering, stomach growling, the hungry children watched as their mother set the table with a Thanksgiving feast.
An audience is zoomed into the fine details of a scene, making that sentence much more interesting to read.

Stroke Three: Appositives

Purpose: Adds detail and description to essentially "re-name" a noun.
Definition: A phrase modifying and usually following a noun.
See also: Grammar Girl on Appositives
Examples: President Obama, our fearless leader, is heading a effort to preserve the Alaskan National Arctic Refuge.
Henry, our local paperboy, says hello to me every morning as I leave for school.
Renames the noun to add further detail into that noun's relevance.
 

Stroke Four: Action Verbs

Purpose: Adds excitement to your sentences and pulls an audience into the action! Helps writers avoid using the passive voice.
Definition: Verbs that relate action rather than states of being
Examples: The snake, rattle shaking and tongue flicking, waited under the porch.
The family embraced in reunion. 
The woman, flailing her arms about wildly and screaming at the top of her lungs, claimed she had seen a ghost.
Gives vivid picture of the scene at hand.

Stroke Five: Adjectives Shifted Out of Order

Purpose: Makes sentences more risky and interesting; hits the audience with unexpected detail that draws them in. 
Definition: Reverse the order of a simple sentence to pull the details first.
Examples: The scouts, tired, thirsty, and bedraggled, finally made it to the top of the mountain.
The woman, enraged, intolerant, and inflexible, refused to move her car to let the turkeys cross the road.
Lets details take the lead in the sentence so that they become the important focus for the reader.



So, now that you're an expert on elegant and interesting sentences, let's see some of your own! 
In a separate word document, write a total of 10 sentences, using each brush stroke at least twice. (Feel free to use more than one stroke in each sentence, but be careful not to overwhelm your reader with too much detail at once!)
Add your most impressive sentence to this page by using the "comment" button below, and be sure to read through a few of your classmates' contributions! 
Hand- write 2 of your favorite of your classmates' sentences at the bottom of your own creative 10 to turn in!
Have fun and think outside the box! There's no boundaries to your creative ability!

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