The Five Brushstrokes

Compare the following images, the first written by a high school student… It was winter. Everything was frozen and white. Snow had fallen from the sky for days. The weather was horrible.

The second by well-known novelist Brian Jacques… 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.

The Writer as Artist The writer is an artist, painting images of life with specific and identifiable brushstrokes, images as realistic as Wyeth and as abstract as Picasso. In the act of creation, the writer, like the artist, relies on fundamental elements. As water colorist explains, “Pictures are not made of flowers, guitars, people, surf, or turf, but with irreducible elements of art: shapes, tones, directions, sizes, lines, textures, and color”. Similarly, writing is not constructed merely from experiences, information, characters, or plots, but from fundamental artistic elements of grammar. -Harry R. Noden, Image Grammar

Participle –An –ing or –ed word (usually) that acts as an adjective. –Adds more action to a description.

The snake attacked its prey. Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the snake attacked its prey.

Participles Painted by Ernest Hemingway 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. --- Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

The dog ran to his owner.

Appositive –A noun or noun phrase that adds a second image to a preceding noun. –It expands details in the imagination.

The raccoon enjoys eating turtle eggs. The raccoon, a midnight scavenger, enjoys eating turtle eggs.

Appositives Painted by Cornelius Ryan Plowing through the choppy gray waters, a phalanx of ships bore down on Hitler's Europe: fast new attack transports, slow rust-scarred freighters, 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 this cavalcade of ships packed with men, guns, tanks, and motor vehicles, and supplies came a formidable array of 702 warships. --- June 6, 1944: The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan

The zebras turned to face the noise.

Adjectives Out of Order –Placing adjectives in a different order can be effective. –Do not use too many “lists” of adjectives. –Amplify the details of an image.

The large, red-eyed, angry moose charged the intruder. The large moose, red-eyed and angry, charged the intruder.

Adjectives Out of Order Painted by Doyle, Carr, and Peck And then, suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. --- The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The Pavilion was a simple city, long and rectangular. --- Alienist by Caleb Carr I could smell Mama, crisp and starched, plumping my pillow, and the cool muslin pillowcase touched both my ears as the back of my head sank into all those feathers. --- A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck

The bunnies devour the plant.

Varying Sentence Beginnings Allows the writing to flow more effectively Move a phrase or clause to the beginning of the sentence — instead of always beginning the sentence with the subject.

The cat climbed the tree with great caution. With great caution, the cat climbed the tree.

Long before the first rays of the sun proclaimed yet another brilliant day on the Monterey Peninsula, Ted lay awake thinking about the weeks ahead. The courtroom. The defendant's table where he would sit, feeling the eyes of the spectators on him, trying to get a sense of the impact of the testimony on the jurors. The verdict: Guilty of Murder in the Second Degree. Why Second Degree? he had asked his first lawyer. "Because in New York State, First Degree is reserved for killing a peace officer. For what it's worth, it amounts to about the same, as far as sentencing goes." Life, he told himself. A life in prison. (167) --- Weep No More My Lady by Mary Higgins Clark

The red-tailed hawk looked powerful when it spread its wings.

The startled frog grasped the leaf at the last moment.

Using Precise Language -Make your writing more energetic with action verbs. -Use precise nouns, adjectives, and adverbs to make your ideas stand out.

Being Verb: The gravel road was on the right side of the barn. Action Verb: The gravel road curled around the right side of the barn.

Action Verbs Painted by Annie Dillard A baseball weighted your hand just so, and fit it. Its red stitches, its good leather and hardness like skin over bone, seemed to call forth a skill both easy and precise. On the catch---the grounder, the fly, the line drive---you could snag a baseball in your mitt, where it stayed, snap, like a mouse locked in its trap, not like some pumpkin of a softball you merely halted, with a terrible sound like a splat. You could curl your fingers around a baseball, and throw it in a straight line. When you hit it with a bat, it cracked---and your heart cracked, too, at the sound. It took a grass stain nicely, stayed round and smelled good and lived lashed in your mitt all winter, hibernating. --- An American Childhood by Annie Dillard

Snow was on the leaves.