Building a Scene Revision Strategies that Work

Building a SceneRevision Strategies that Work

L. Alicia LacyOklahoma Writing Project Teacher Consultant

Adapted from Barry Lane’s After THE END (1993)

Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)

Date and lable your Writer’s Notebook.

October 6, 2010Snapshots – Sketching a Person


Compare and contrast the sentences below.

Jessica is tall and thin with long red hair.

Jessica is nearly six feet tall and built like a track star with long wavy fire-engine red locks framing her freckled face.


“Writers are like photographers with giant zoom lenses, observing life in incredibly fine detail, pulling back to make sweeping generalizations, then zooming in again to make those generalizations come alive with detail.”

—Barry Lane, After THE END

Copy this into your Writer’s Notebook.


What is a snapshot in writing?A snapshot in writing is description that captures sharp physical details—smells, sounds, colors, and light.

Copy this into your Writer’s Notebook.


Sketch a PersonSimilar to the quick drawings artists make in sketchbooks, writers often describe characters in a few sentences, saying as much as possible about a person with a few well chosen details.


Examples of sketching a person from literature:A giant of a man was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair.

—J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone


Examples of sketching a person from literature:She wore an off-white dress so long it covered her shoes. It had ruffles around the neck and cuffs and looked like it could have been her great-grandmother’s wedding gown. Her hair was the color of sand. It fell to her shoulders. Something was strapped across her back. At first I thought it was a miniature guitar. I found out later it was a ukulele.

—Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl


Practice sketching a personIn response to one of the following picture prompts, write a snapshot. Practice “sketching” a person, revealing as much as possible about the person with a few well chosen details.

As a table group:•First choose one of the following pictures to “sketch.”•Then work together to choose vivid details.•Your recorder will write the details on a 4x6 notecard.


Date and lable your Writer’s Notebook:

October 7, 2010Snapshots – Sketching a Person, cont.


Now choose one picture to “sketch” into your Writer’s Notebook.

3 MINUTE QUICKWRITE


1. Find your paragraph from Tuesday: Describe an Important Person.

2. Revise your description, by adding a Snapshot like the ones you just practiced.

3. Include your Snapshot – Sketch a Person – in a new draft (D2)of your revised paragraph in your WN.

4. Be sure to skip lines, date, & label.

Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)

Date and label your Writer’s Notebook:

October 8, 2010Snapshots – Sketching a Place



The living room is warm and cozy.

A fire crackles in front of the suede sofa as papa strums his guitar and we sip hot cocoa.


Sketch a PlaceWriters often introduce a setting by creating a sketch of a place. They capture concrete details with a few quick “strokes,” evoking a mood or personality or aura beyond what’s physically there.


Examples of sketching a place from literature:The edge of the sky turned gray, and then pale orange, and then deep fiery crimson. The land stood out against it, a long black rolling line. One spot along this line grew so bright they could hardly look at it, so bright it seemed to take a bite out of the land. It rose higher and higher until they could see that it was a fiery circle, first deep orange and then yellow, and too bright to look at any longer. The color seeped out of the sky and washed over the land. Light sparkled on the soft hair of the hills and shone through the lacy leaves as every shade of green sprang to life around them.

—Jeanne DuPrau, City of Ember


Examples of sketching a place from literature:The wind suddenly fell and then veered round to the south. The swift-floating clouds lifted and melted away, and the sun came out, pale and bright. There came a cold clear dawn at the end of a long stumbling night-march. The travelers reached a low ridge crowned with ancient holly-trees whose grey-green trunks seemed to have been built out of the very stone of the hills. Their dark leaves shone and their berries glowed red in the light of the rising sun.

Away in the south Frodo could see the dim shapes of lofty mountains that seemed now to stand across the path that the Company was taking. At the left of this high range rose three peaks; the tallest and nearest stood up like a tooth tipped with snow; its great, bare, northern precipice was still largely in the shadow, but where the sunlight slanted upon it, it glowed red.

—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring


Practice sketching a placeIn response to one of the following picture prompts, write a snapshot. Practice “sketching” a place, capturing physical details and evoking a mood or personality or aura.



Now choose one picture to “sketch” into your Writer’s Notebook.

3 MINUTE QUICKWRITE:QW-Sketch a Place


1. Find your paragraph from last week: Describe an Important Place.

2. Revise your description, by adding a Snapshot like the ones you just practiced.

3. Include your Snapshot – Sketch a Place – in a new draft (D2) of your revised paragraph in your WN.



Date and lable your Writer’s Notebook:

October 11, 2010THOUGHTSHOTS

Building a Scene: Thoughtshots


Mark was angry.

Mark turned red as he clinched his fists. How could he? After 17 years of marriage, how could his father just walk away from his wife, his children, his home, his responsibilities?


“Writers have the power to tell their own thoughts and the thoughts of characters. Just as writers make physical snapshots, they can also take a snapshot of the thoughts in their characters’ heads, or in their own mind.”

—Barry Lane , After THE END

Copy this into your Writer’s Notebook – at least the first complete sentence.


What is a thoughtshot?A thoughtshot is written description that captures what the author or a character is thinking or feeling. Used in fiction and non-fiction, thoughtshots place events in a context and give the reader a reason to be interested.

Copy ALL of this into your Writer’s Notebook.


Examples of thoughtshots from literatureI wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

—Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief


Examples of thoughtshots from literatureFacing my pallid reflection in the mirror, I was forced to admit that I was lying to myself. It wasn’t just physically that I’d never fit in. And if I couldn’t find a niche in a school with three thousand people, what were my chances here?

—Stephenie Meyer, Twilight


Practice writing thoughtshotsIn response to one of the following picture prompts, write a thoughtshot. Practice capturing what the character is thinking or feeling. You may write in first person (I, me), pretending you are the character, or in third person (he, she, it).



Now choose a different picture to practice, individually, composing a thoughtshot in your WN.

3 MINUTE QUICKWRITE: QW - Thoughtshot


1. Find D2 (Draft Two): Describe an Important Person.

2. Revise your description, by adding a Thoughtshot like the ones you just practiced.

3. Include your Thoughtshot in a new draft (D3) of your revised paragraph in your WN.


Documents

Building a Scene Revision Strategies that Work