Today, we talked about tone...and, depending on which class you were in, our Snickers-intoxicated actors gave us an interesting taste of the classic acting game, "Happy Mad Sad." Each person was asked to act one of the afore-mentioned emotions, conveying this through eating a candy bar.
Was this just a good excuse to send children home hyped up on sugar? On some level...sure. It's entertaining for me. But, the real point of the lesson is this: we need to "show" the actions and emotions in our stories; not merely convey them.
Here is the sentence I presented you in hopes of improvement: "S/He ate a Snickers."
Interesting iterations used the following techniques:
1. Additions of adjectives and adverbs to enhance words already within the sentence. Calling a Snickers a mere candy bar is actually downgrading the specificity in the sentence. Calling it a chewy, crunchy caramelly confection coated in chocolate not only breaks down what a Snickers actually is, it also uses alliteration. :-) (See figurative language.)
2. Replacing words, especially nouns and verbs, for more specific and pointed nouns and less passive verbs. To say that any of our Snickers-munchers merely ate the Snickers is unfair (if you were in 7th period...Marina did not simply eat that Snickers - she howled like a banshee and ate it like a boss, no offense to our friends in 2nd period).
So, to discuss that, I'd like to show you something called gradations of description. Let's use happy, mad, and sad as an example. There are different levels of happy, mad, and sad. How you want to convey an emotion in your story is entirely dependent on your gradations. Watch this: the following adjectives in each category will be listed from least extreme to most extreme -
HAPPY MAD SAD
satisfied annoyed melancholy
content aggravated solemn
happy mad sad
jubilant angered depressed
ecstatic infuriated suicidal
These are just three baseline adjectives that have these gradations. Consider what you want to get across to your reader.
3. Figurative language can make your story line pop and become memorable. If you need to describe a particular scene, and you're tired of listing a bunch of details, break out the figurative language and force the reader to use a little bit of their imagination. Let's return to the Snickers examples. Saying that someone hungrily ate a Snickers may not be enough.
So, we'll add a simile to the mix: She ate her Snickers bar hungrily, as if she had not experience earthly pleasure in a lifetime of waiting, and smiled as if she had witnessed religious miracles, content and calm.
The underlined part of this sentence is necessary - it gives us an image. The rest of the sentence helps with characterization, tone, and author's purpose.
By the way, if you like Snickers that much, they're easy to find. And, if you have an allergy, and excellent alternative is a Milky Way (or Starburst, if that's your thing).
Tonight, as you work on your rough drafting, remember that you have already told your story; that is what your Freytag's Pyramid was for last night. Now you have to show it. Bonne chance, mes amis. :-)
Until,
Ms. B
Was this just a good excuse to send children home hyped up on sugar? On some level...sure. It's entertaining for me. But, the real point of the lesson is this: we need to "show" the actions and emotions in our stories; not merely convey them.
Here is the sentence I presented you in hopes of improvement: "S/He ate a Snickers."
Interesting iterations used the following techniques:
1. Additions of adjectives and adverbs to enhance words already within the sentence. Calling a Snickers a mere candy bar is actually downgrading the specificity in the sentence. Calling it a chewy, crunchy caramelly confection coated in chocolate not only breaks down what a Snickers actually is, it also uses alliteration. :-) (See figurative language.)
2. Replacing words, especially nouns and verbs, for more specific and pointed nouns and less passive verbs. To say that any of our Snickers-munchers merely ate the Snickers is unfair (if you were in 7th period...Marina did not simply eat that Snickers - she howled like a banshee and ate it like a boss, no offense to our friends in 2nd period).
So, to discuss that, I'd like to show you something called gradations of description. Let's use happy, mad, and sad as an example. There are different levels of happy, mad, and sad. How you want to convey an emotion in your story is entirely dependent on your gradations. Watch this: the following adjectives in each category will be listed from least extreme to most extreme -
HAPPY MAD SAD
satisfied annoyed melancholy
content aggravated solemn
happy mad sad
jubilant angered depressed
ecstatic infuriated suicidal
These are just three baseline adjectives that have these gradations. Consider what you want to get across to your reader.
3. Figurative language can make your story line pop and become memorable. If you need to describe a particular scene, and you're tired of listing a bunch of details, break out the figurative language and force the reader to use a little bit of their imagination. Let's return to the Snickers examples. Saying that someone hungrily ate a Snickers may not be enough.
So, we'll add a simile to the mix: She ate her Snickers bar hungrily, as if she had not experience earthly pleasure in a lifetime of waiting, and smiled as if she had witnessed religious miracles, content and calm.
The underlined part of this sentence is necessary - it gives us an image. The rest of the sentence helps with characterization, tone, and author's purpose.
By the way, if you like Snickers that much, they're easy to find. And, if you have an allergy, and excellent alternative is a Milky Way (or Starburst, if that's your thing).
Tonight, as you work on your rough drafting, remember that you have already told your story; that is what your Freytag's Pyramid was for last night. Now you have to show it. Bonne chance, mes amis. :-)
Until,
Ms. B
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