Image-driven

revision strategiessentence composition

voice

what makes each artist unique?

voice = writer’s use of diction + syntax

the words you choose

and how you arrange them

William Carlos Williams dictum about things being the life of

poetry holds true in creative nonfiction. . . The essay teeming with

“stuff” is much more memorable than one that floats in

abstraction. A piece about love doesn’t end up in our cells unless

it is grounded in the softness of your lover’s neck as it disappears

into the collar of his sweatshirt. Or what about that scab you

picked while you were crying on the phone to the man you knew

would leave you by spring? Just like the strong poem, the strong

piece of prose is rife with metaphorical power—from your mother’s

out-of-tune piano to the orphan sock that keeps showing up in

your tangled underwear drawer. When we turn to things, the truth

comes at us through the back door, and we are surprised by ideas

and emotions we didn’t know we possessed.

Now Write: Nonfiction by Sherry Ellis, Editor

Application/Implication:

What concrete details do you include in your essay to help

your reader “see” and “understand”?

Showing v. Telling

not just WHAT (concrete details, actions, imagery) but also

HOW

HOW does the artist/writer SHOW

LEADING LINES

show the viewer what’s important

emphasis

Writing Strategies

Periodic Sentence

Beginning and endings (start & end points)

When you're sitting at your desk, working on your

essay, cursing at your teacher, wringing your

hands, wondering how to make your point stand

out, and you're ready to tear your hair out, use a

periodic sentence.

Because they withhold the main idea until the end

and force the reader to keep going, periodic

sentences build suspense.

CONTRAST

Writing Strategies

Sentence length

Sentence position

Imagery

Ideas

They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against

the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts,

soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into

the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down,

just humping, one step and then the next and then another,

but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was

anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and

carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of

emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience

and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in

their feet. Their calculations were biological. They had no

sense of strategy or mission.

The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

Note sentence length and position

They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against

the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts,

soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into

the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down,

just humping, one step and then the next and then another,

but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was

anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and

carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of

emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience

and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in

their feet. Their calculations were biological. They had no

sense of strategy or mission.

The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

1984, George Orwell

Note contrasts in imagery and idea

blah blah blah blah blah text text text text blah blah blah

blah blah text text text text blah blah blah blah blah text text

text text blah blah blah blah blah text text text text blah blah

blah blah blah text text text text blah blah blah blah blah

text text text text blah blah blah blah blah text text text text

blah blah blah blah blah text text text text.

And that’s when it happened.