Building a Scene
Revision Strategies that Work
L. Alicia Lacy
Oklahoma 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, 2010
Snapshots – Sketching a Person
Building a Scene: Snapshots (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.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
“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.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
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.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
Sketch a Person
Similar 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.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
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
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
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 greatgrandmother’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
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
Practice sketching a person
In 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.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
Date and lable your Writer’s Notebook:
October 7, 2010
Snapshots – Sketching a Person, cont.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
Now choose one picture to “sketch”
into your Writer’s Notebook.
3 MINUTE QUICKWRITE
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Person)
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, 2010
Snapshots – Sketching a Place
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)
Compare and contrast the sentences below.
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.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)
Sketch a Place
Writers 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.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)
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
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)
Examples of sketching a place from literature:
The wind suddenly fell and then veered round to the south. The swiftfloating 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
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)
Practice sketching a place
In 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.
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.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)
Now choose one picture to “sketch”
into your Writer’s Notebook.
3 MINUTE QUICKWRITE:
QW-Sketch a Place
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching 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.
4. Be sure to skip lines, date, & label.
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)
Date and lable your Writer’s Notebook:
October 11, 2010
THOUGHTSHOTS
Building a Scene: Thoughtshots
Compare and contrast the sentences below.
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?
Building a Scene: Thoughtshots
“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.
Building a Scene: Thoughtshots
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.
Building a Scene: Thoughtshots
Examples of thoughtshots from literature
I 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
Building a Scene: Thoughtshots
Examples of thoughtshots from literature
Facing 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
Building a Scene: Thoughtshots
Practice writing thoughtshots
In 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).
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.
Building a Scene: Thoughtshots
Now choose a different picture to
practice, individually, composing a
thoughtshot in your WN.
3 MINUTE QUICKWRITE:
QW - Thoughtshot
Building a Scene: Snapshots (Sketching a Place)
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.
4. Be sure to skip lines, date, &
label.