Seeing Specific Details

1. Seeing Specific Details Nouns and verbs

2. In novels of writers… • Like J.R.R. Tolkien, Sue Grafton, Jack London, Suzanne Collins, characters never go “into the woods and build a fire” • Instead, they walk “into the deep resin-scented darkness and gather dead stikcs and cones to make a fire.”

3. In novels of writers… • A slave girl fearful her child will be sold into slavery doesn’t just “leave the plantation with her child in her arms.” • Instead “the frosty ground creaks beneath her feet, and she trembles at the sound; every quaking leaf and fluttering shadow send the blood backward to her heart and and quickens her footsteps”

4. Difference? • Professional writers paint with specific details. • Look at the difference: • “The child ran out of the shelter toward the beach, went into the water, and swam” • Versus Jean M. Auel’s image: • “The naked child ran out of the hide-covered lean-to toward the rocky beach at the bend in the river…She splashed into the river and felt rocks and sand shift under her feet as the shore fell off sharply. She divided into the cold water and came up sputtering, then reached out with sure strokes for the steep opposite bank”

5. Motion picture • Auel’s image of the child creates a motion picture in your mind with sensory details. You are right there experiencing it with the character. You hear the splashing water, you feel the shifting sandbetween your toes, you are gasping for breath. • Those details create 3-D images in your mind. • “The more specific the language, the more the reader believes and trusts the writer.” Donald Murray

6. Recognize Image Blanks • Don’t describe a character as “nervous” that is an image blank, a word that shrouds specific images and gives the reader’s imagination very little to visualize. It is like firing a blank, shooting a photo with a fogged lens-pointless. The reader’s imagination is traveling through a mental desert, barren and devoid of colorful details.

7. Recognize Image Blanks • Instead, describe the character like this: • Glancing at the midnight moon shadows from one side of the dark alleyway to the other, biting her nails ans rivulets of perspiration soak her eyebrows” • She is “nervous.” Versus “She is glancing at the midnight moon shadows from one side of the dark alleyway to the other, biting her nails as rivulets of perspiration soak her eyebrows” • Which one is better for the reader?

8. Recognize Image Blanks • Which is better for the reader? • “In came a dog” Or • “In came Charlie, the pit bull, frothing at the mouth” • Why? What emotional connections does the image give the reader? What sensory connections does the image give the reader?

9. Recognize Image Blanks • Which is better for the reader? • “She loved her daughter” Or • “She kissed three-year-old Anna softly on the cheek and tucked in the covers as Anna slept” Why? What emotional connections does the image give the reader? What sensory connections does the image give the reader?

10. How do you get more specific? • Start with focusing on your nouns and verbs. • Robert Newton Peck says, “Writing is not a butterfly collection of adverbs and adjectives. Good fiction is a head-on crash of nouns and verbs”

11. Activity • Fold paper in half • On one side write a list of ten nouns (any nouns) • Flip over the paper and write a profession on the top (doctor, lawyer, chef, dancer, plumber, etc.) • Then write ten specific verbs that relate to that profession. • For example: • Chef • Sauté • Simmer • Dancer • Pirouette • leap • Now open up your pages and choose a noun and verb combination to make a unique sentence. • Examples: Dinosaurs marinate in the earth. Posies leap toward the sunlight.

12. Choosing the best words • Words have meanings that vary and get less or more intense. Let’s look at angry. • Synonyms of anger are frustrate, furious, irritate, fume, irate, livid, and many more. If we put these on a scale of intensity it might look like this: Frustrate irritate anger fume furious irate livid Less intense very intense • Choosing the right word makes all the difference.

13. Try with watch • Look up words in the thesaurus for the action to “watch.” Or write down words you know mean “watch.” • Try some of those words out in a sample sentence to see if you can hear the differences. • Megan _________. (watched, etc.) • Megan _________. (watched, etc.) • Megan _________. (watched, etc.)

14. Try with run • Look up “run” in the thesaurus. Or write down words you know mean “run.” • Try out a couple sentences with some of the words you found: • Josh _________ (runs, etc.) • Josh _________ (runs, etc.) • Josh _________ (runs, etc.)

15. Try with Your Own • Look up your own verb (maybe use one from the list you made yesterday) • Create at least three different sentences that use different synonyms for your verb.