SEEING SPECIFIC DETAILS
Nouns and verbs
In novels of writers…
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Like J.R.R. Tolkien, Sue Grafton, Jack London,
Suzanne Collins, characters never “go into the
woods and build a fire”
Instead, they “trudge into the deep resin-scented
darkness and gather dead sticks and cones to make
a fire.”
In novels of writers…
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A slave girl fearful her child will be sold into
slavery doesn’t just “leave the plantation with her
child in her arms.”
Instead “the frosty ground creaks beneath her feet,
and she trembles at the sound; every quaking leaf
and fluttering shadow send the blood backward to
her heart and quickens her footsteps”
Difference?
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Professional writers paint with specific details.
Look at the difference:
“The child ran out of the shelter toward the beach, went
into the water, and swam”
Versus Jean M. Auel’s image:
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“The naked child ran out of the hide-covered lean-to toward
the rocky beach at the bend in the river…She splashed into
the river and felt rocks and sand shift under her feet as the
shore fell off sharply. She divided into the cold water and
came up sputtering, then reached out with sure strokes for
the steep opposite bank”
Motion picture
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Auel’s image of the child creates a motion picture in
your mind with sensory details. You are right there
experiencing it with the character. You hear the
splashing water, you feel the shifting sand between
your toes, you are gasping for breath.
Those details create 3-D images in your mind.
“The more specific the language, the more the
reader believes and trusts the writer.” Donald
Murray
Recognize Image Blanks
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Don’t describe a character as “nervous.” That is an
image blank, a word that shrouds specific images
and gives the reader’s imagination very little to
visualize.
It is like firing a blank, shooting a photo with a
fogged lens-pointless. The reader’s imagination is
traveling through a mental desert, barren and
devoid of colorful details.
Recognize Image Blanks
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Instead, describe the character like this:
Glancing at the midnight moon’s shadows from one side of
the dark alleyway to the other, biting her nails while rivulets
of perspiration soak her eyebrows, she waits in the darkness.
 She is “nervous.”
 Versus
 Glancing at the midnight moon’s shadows from one side of
the dark alleyway to the other, biting her nails while rivulets
of perspiration soak her eyebrows, she waits in the darkness.
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Which one is better to help the reader imagine the scene?
Recognize Image Blanks
Which is better at creating a strong image for the
reader?
 “In came a dog.”
Or
 “In came Charlie, the pit bull, frothing at the mouth”
 What emotional connections and specific images
does the second sentence give the reader? What
sensory connections does the image give the
reader?
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Recognize Image Blanks
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Which is better for the reader?
 “She
put her child in bed.”
Or
 “The
mother kissed three-year-old Charlotte tenderly
on her soft cheeks, chubby and rose-colored, and
nestled the covers snugly under Charlotte’s tiny legs
and arms.”
Why? What emotional connections does the image give
the reader? What sensory connections does the image
give the reader?
How do you get more specific?
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Let’s start with focusing on your nouns and verbs.
Robert Newton Peck says, “Writing is not a butterfly
collection of adverbs and adjectives. Good fiction is
a head-on crash of nouns and verbs”
Activity
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Fold paper in half
On one side write a list of ten nouns (horse, dinosaur, volcano, etc.)
Flip over the paper and write a profession on the top (doctor, lawyer, chef, dancer,
plumber, etc.)
Then write ten specific verbs that relate to that profession.
For example:
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Chef
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Dancer
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Sauté
Simmer
Marinate
Pirouette
Leap
Bend
Now open up your pages and choose a noun and verb combination to make a unique
sentence that makes sense.
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Examples:
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Dinosaurs marinate in the earth.
Posies leap toward the sunlight.
Choosing the best words
Words have meanings that vary and get less or more
intense. Let’s look at angry.
 Synonyms of anger are frustrated, furious, irritate, fume,
irate, livid, and many more. If we put these on a scale of
intensity it might look like this:
Frustrated irritated anger fumed furious irate livid
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Less intense
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very intense
Choosing the right word makes all the difference.
Try with watch
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Look up words in the thesaurus for the action to look(or
see). Or write down words you know mean to watch.
Try some of those words out in a sample sentence to see
if you can hear the differences.
Megan looked at the moon.
Megan peered at the moon.
Megan glanced at the moon.
You try a couple…
Megan ________________ at the moon.
Try with run
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Look up “run” in the thesaurus. Or write down words
you know mean “run.”
Try out a couple sentences with some of the words
you found:
Josh _________ towards the bus.
Josh _________ towards the bus.
Josh _________ towards the bus.
Try with Your Own
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Look up your own verb (maybe use one from the list
you made yesterday)
Write a sentence and then change the verb in the
sentence to see how it changes the meaning of the
sentence. Try to create at least 3 sentences.
Go back to your journal
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Underline the verbs you used in your journal.
Now, go to the thesaurus and look up better verbs
to use. Remember to take out WAS, IS, AM, ARE,
WERE verbs. Those are “image blanks” and do
nothing for the reader. Try to use instead verbs that
show meaning.
Rewrite two-three lines from your journal with the
better verb choices.
Details using Adjectives
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Adjectives can be added to writing to define
images, but be careful! Too many adjectives are
shapeless and lead the reader nowhere.
Fro example, “the beautiful mountains.” The
adjective “beautiful” creates no clear picture of the
mountains. It is formless, unclear and simply an
opinion.
Adjectives
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As I read some of these words, try to picture an
image in your head:
Caring, playful, lazy, immature, happy, shy, nervous,
brave, cranky, and trusting are all adjectives that
are unclear.
You probably pictured something entirely different
than I did.
Adjectives
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Adjectives are good to use, sparingly!
They serve a purpose for generalizing, but should
only be used when absolutely necessary and should
be followed or proceeded by specific, clear
images-nouns.
Adjectives
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A second problem is too many used in a row.
Too many adjectives can destroy the picture or
minimize the significance of each adjective. Look at
this example:
 Betty
entered the room. A red ribbon contrasted her
coal black hair, and she or a pale blue dress with a
violet flower design. Her new black patent leather
shoes reflected her unusual red socks. Betty was
chewing gum and carrying a small brown purse that
did not match her outfit.
 This is adjective OVERLOAD!
Adjectives
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To be effective, writers must exercise choice!
If you use an adjective, make sure it is used for
emphasis, used sparingly, and only if it contributes to the
meaning of the story.
Look at this example, “The dilapidated car chugged into
the driveway, dented fenders rattling, the bumper
dragging on the pavement, the engine sending bellows
of white smoke as the car came to a stop.”
Dilapidated sets up a controlled generalization and the
rest of the details add to that general image-clarifying
it. (Notice the use of the absolute?)
Prepositional Phrases
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These are phrases that are added to sentences. They
are extra information that can be taken out. They are
only there for added effect and are not part of the
original sentence. Prepositional phrases begin with
words that show location or position.
Here, above, below, of, under, over, near, behind,
with, etc.
Example of a sentence using a prepositional phrase:
 Under
the dark sky, the broken road glistened in the rain.
Metaphors and Similes
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Smart Board activity