I'm really interested in the “brush
strokes” that we learned about earlier in the week. I am always
looking for ways to make my writing more descriptive without making
it florid, and I think that these are really useful tools to have,
especially if we want to write creatively in the future. I think that
I've been doing these things without really realizing it for some
time, but it's nice to have them in my repertoire now.
For example, for me, finding the fine
line between fleshing out your characters' descriptions and overdoing
it can be difficult. I have read stories that tell us everything
about the way a character looks, right down to what brand of mascara
she is wearing, or what color the stripes on his Adidas are, and,
conversely, I have read stories that leave me wondering if the
character described even has any physical characteristics whatsoever.
(That sentence is a little overlong. I'm still learning.)
One of the things I really like about
the “brush strokes” is that they give you a lot of different ways
to say the same thing, which is something I always appreciate. For
example, with a little tweaking, you basically have infinite ways to
say something as simple as, “The blonde girl cried.”
“Painting with participles”:
Hugging herself to protect from the cold, the blonde girl wept
bitterly in the cold.
“Painting with absolutes”: Body
shaking, eyes streaming, the blonde girl cried like her life depended
on the tears.
“Painting with appositives”: The girl, a pale ghost with
even lighter hair, sobbed without respite for hours.
“Painting with adjectives out of order”: The girl, pale and
hunched, wept silently.
I realize that outright providing examples like that rather than
trying to incorporate them them into the actual blog post is kind of
going for the low-hanging fruit, as it were, but I wanted to do it
like this because I wanted to use examples that are more creative
than technical, if that makes sense. With that said, I look forward
to working more on these in the future, because I think they will be
quite helpful (especially in that “one chapter” assignment a few
of us are working on for English 325 – of course, I can't speak to
these techniques' helpfulness for other people, but hey).
I think it would have been really cool if you would described your excitement in a paint stroke. Show how it can be used in a normal blog. Or even give us a paragraph of a piece of creative writing you might have. I feel that the paint brushes add drama to something which seems drama free such as academic writing. Add a bit more drama!!
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