Post by Yoshifrog on Jan 2, 2007 17:51:10 GMT -5
More Describery practice
I made this checklist to help me focus as I write. Maybe it'll help you as well.
"The girl was nervous."
Checklist
-Describe the situation
How she looks
How she feels
How she’s behaving
Maybe, some dialogue
-Discover the story behind it
Why is she nervous?
Who/what is causing it?
What events lead her to this state?
-Make it pretty
Remember, even when describing death, you can make it sound pretty.
Use colorful vocabulary.
Make it flow (use different words, and different sentence lengths.)
Give it personality.
Give her personality.
Newly revised-
She sat at the lunch table twiddling her thumbs, her palms beginning to sweat. She had dressed up pretty today, because tonight was her school’s big dance- unlike many others who went home to pamper themselves for the big night, she had to be prepared for it earlier. The cause? It was her job to stay after school and help with the decorations. She was there many hours before the dance, but with her friends there to accompany her she expected the wait to be fun. It wasn’t. You see, she had this crush, and she had heard rumors that he was going to ask her to dance- why be nervous? Well, she had also heard rumors that some kid named Teddy- one of the school’s “tough guys” wanted to ask her too. She hated him. Supposedly they were going to race each other at the first slow dance and see who reached her first. She couldn’t handle turning Teddy down and then dancing with someone else thirty seconds later. She decided to hide in the bathroom at the first slow dance- but there would be plenty more, and she was dying to dance with the boy of her dreams.
There is nothing wrong with the piece I’ve written, but it sounds more like a clipping out of a novel. I want more of a more-than-short short-story. I used red to show which areas I missed.
-Describe the situation
How she looks < I may describe this later on in the story
How she feels
How she’s behaving
Maybe, some dialogue < not necessary, but there may be some
-Discover the story behind it
Why is she nervous?
Who/what is causing it?
What events lead her to this state?
-Make it pretty
Remember, even when describing death, you can make it sound pretty.
Use colorful vocabulary. < Most of the words I used are average
Make it flow (use different words, and different sentence lengths.)
Give it personality.
Give her personality. <We don’t quite know her yet
As the story continues, I will not revise completely, but use more detail and make it sound pretty. This may help, as in this section I am going to describe the way “the girl” looks.
Danni was the girl’s name, and she sat on her bench almost dying to escape from the cafeteria, grab her boy and run off to the distance. Dance is all she wished to do, dance for hours in the moonlight with him. But trapped she was. Her friends gave her encouragement, and tried to shift her mood with statements including ones like “Oh my Danni, you look so pretty tonight!”. Indeed she did. Her long brown hair spilled over her face in pretty little waves, her nails had just been manicured and each one held a little green palm tree on it’s surface along with swirling blue waves and a pink sunset, and her soft green eyes shimmered in the dim light of the lunch room. She was wearing a jean skirt and leggings, a long-sleeved thin and fitted tee- brown with 77 printed on the front. She wore dangling earrings and a big jeweled ring. She could dance with any boy she wanted. But there was only one she truly desired. And as she moped she hoped and prayed for her loved one to win the race.
Checklist
-Describe the situation
How she looks
How she feels
How she’s behaving
Maybe, some dialogue
-Discover the story behind it
Why is she nervous?
Who/what is causing it?
What events lead her to this state?
-Make it pretty
Remember, even when describing death, you can make it sound pretty.
Use colorful vocabulary. <Ah I’m not in the vocab mood today
Make it flow (use different words, and different sentence lengths.)
Give it personality.
Give her personality. < I don’t think I am this time, poor lazy me
I may continue this, but this stupid checklist has made me realize that sometimes writing isn’t fun. At all.
I NEED MORE PRACTICE SO PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME. I’M AWARE THAT I WRITE LIKE CRAP.
I made this checklist to help me focus as I write. Maybe it'll help you as well.
"The girl was nervous."
Checklist
-Describe the situation
How she looks
How she feels
How she’s behaving
Maybe, some dialogue
-Discover the story behind it
Why is she nervous?
Who/what is causing it?
What events lead her to this state?
-Make it pretty
Remember, even when describing death, you can make it sound pretty.
Use colorful vocabulary.
Make it flow (use different words, and different sentence lengths.)
Give it personality.
Give her personality.
Newly revised-
She sat at the lunch table twiddling her thumbs, her palms beginning to sweat. She had dressed up pretty today, because tonight was her school’s big dance- unlike many others who went home to pamper themselves for the big night, she had to be prepared for it earlier. The cause? It was her job to stay after school and help with the decorations. She was there many hours before the dance, but with her friends there to accompany her she expected the wait to be fun. It wasn’t. You see, she had this crush, and she had heard rumors that he was going to ask her to dance- why be nervous? Well, she had also heard rumors that some kid named Teddy- one of the school’s “tough guys” wanted to ask her too. She hated him. Supposedly they were going to race each other at the first slow dance and see who reached her first. She couldn’t handle turning Teddy down and then dancing with someone else thirty seconds later. She decided to hide in the bathroom at the first slow dance- but there would be plenty more, and she was dying to dance with the boy of her dreams.
There is nothing wrong with the piece I’ve written, but it sounds more like a clipping out of a novel. I want more of a more-than-short short-story. I used red to show which areas I missed.
-Describe the situation
How she looks < I may describe this later on in the story
How she feels
How she’s behaving
Maybe, some dialogue < not necessary, but there may be some
-Discover the story behind it
Why is she nervous?
Who/what is causing it?
What events lead her to this state?
-Make it pretty
Remember, even when describing death, you can make it sound pretty.
Use colorful vocabulary. < Most of the words I used are average
Make it flow (use different words, and different sentence lengths.)
Give it personality.
Give her personality. <We don’t quite know her yet
As the story continues, I will not revise completely, but use more detail and make it sound pretty. This may help, as in this section I am going to describe the way “the girl” looks.
Danni was the girl’s name, and she sat on her bench almost dying to escape from the cafeteria, grab her boy and run off to the distance. Dance is all she wished to do, dance for hours in the moonlight with him. But trapped she was. Her friends gave her encouragement, and tried to shift her mood with statements including ones like “Oh my Danni, you look so pretty tonight!”. Indeed she did. Her long brown hair spilled over her face in pretty little waves, her nails had just been manicured and each one held a little green palm tree on it’s surface along with swirling blue waves and a pink sunset, and her soft green eyes shimmered in the dim light of the lunch room. She was wearing a jean skirt and leggings, a long-sleeved thin and fitted tee- brown with 77 printed on the front. She wore dangling earrings and a big jeweled ring. She could dance with any boy she wanted. But there was only one she truly desired. And as she moped she hoped and prayed for her loved one to win the race.
Checklist
-Describe the situation
How she looks
How she feels
How she’s behaving
Maybe, some dialogue
-Discover the story behind it
Why is she nervous?
Who/what is causing it?
What events lead her to this state?
-Make it pretty
Remember, even when describing death, you can make it sound pretty.
Use colorful vocabulary. <Ah I’m not in the vocab mood today
Make it flow (use different words, and different sentence lengths.)
Give it personality.
Give her personality. < I don’t think I am this time, poor lazy me
I may continue this, but this stupid checklist has made me realize that sometimes writing isn’t fun. At all.
I NEED MORE PRACTICE SO PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME. I’M AWARE THAT I WRITE LIKE CRAP.
