5 brush strokes to paint a picture with words Writing as Seeing 5 brush strokes to paint a picture with words

Describe This Picture

What is the difference between these two? It was winter. Everything was frozen and white with snow. Snow had fallen from the sky for days. The weather was horrible. Mossflower lay deep in the grip of midwinter beneath a sky of leaden gray that showed tinges of scarlet and orange on the horizon. A cold mantle of snow draped the landscape, covering the flatlands to the west. Snow was everywhere, filling the ditches, drifting high against the hedgerows, making paths invisible, smoothing the contours of earth in its white embrace.

Tell Show Bill was nervous. Bill sat in a dentist’s waiting room, peeling the skin at the edge of his thumb, until the raw, red flesh began to show. Biting the torn cuticle, he ripped it away, and sucked at the warm sweetness of his own blood.

5 Brush Strokes of Image Grammar The participle The absolute The appositive Adjectives shifted out of order Action Verbs

The participle What is it: An ing verb at the beginning or ending of a sentence Basic sentence: The diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey. With participles: Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey. Take a step further: Participle phrases or participles with modifiers. Hissing their forked red tongues and coiling their cold bodies, the diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey.

Pro Using Participles Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully, he washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged, for more than a minute, watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against his hand as the boat moved. -Ernest Hemingway Old Man and the Sea

Use a participle

Absolutes What is it: a noun combined with an ing participle at the beginning or ending of a sentence. Basic Sentence: The mountain climber edged along the cliff. With absolute: The mountain climber edged along the cliff, hands shaking, feet trembling. Warning: More than two and the image will be overloaded.

Pro Using Absolute The mummy was moving. The mummy’s right arm was outstretched, the torn wrappings hanging from it, as the being stepped out of its gilded box! The scream froze in her throat. The thing was coming towards her—towards Henry, who stood with his back to it—moving with a weak, shuffling gait, that arm outstretched before it, the dust rising from the rotting linen that covered it, a great smell of dust and decay filling the room. -Anne Rice The Mummy

Use an Absolute

Appositives What is it: A noun that adds a second image to a preceding noun. Basic sentence: The raccoon enjoys eating turtle eggs. With appositives: The raccoon, a scavenger, enjoys eating turtle eggs. Take a step Further: Appositive Phrase or appositive with modifiers The raccoon, a midnight scavenger who roams lake shorelines in search of food, enjoys eating turtle eggs.

Pro Using Appositives Plowing through the choppy gray waters, a phalanx of ships bored down on Hitler’s Europe: fast new attack transports, slow rust- scarred freights, small ocean liners, channel steamers, hospital ships, weather-beaten tankers, and swarms of fussing tugs. Barrage balloons flew above the ships. Squadrons of fighter planes weaved below the clouds. And surrounding the cavalcade of ships packed with men, guns, tanks, and motor vehicles, and supplies came a formidable array of warships. -Cornelius Ryan June 6, 1944

Use an Appositive

Adjectives Shifted Out of Order What is it: moving adjectives to after the image Basic Sentence: The large, red-eyed, angry bull moose charged the intruder. Using Adjective Shift: The large bull moose, red-eyed and angry, charged the intruder.

Pro Using Adjective Shift And then suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Hound of the Baskervilles

Use an Adjective Shift

Action Verbs What is it: Eliminating passive voice and reducing being verbs. Passive Voice: The runaway horse was ridden into town by an old, white-whiskered rancher Action Verb: The old, white-whiskered rancher rode the runaway horse into town. Being Verb: The gravel road was on the left side of the barn. Action Verb: The gravel road curled around the left side of the barn.

Use an Action Verb