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DESCRIPTION, PARAGRAPHING + FOCUSING

DESCRIPTIONADDING INTEREST

What often adds interest to a memoir, or to any narrative for that matter, is description.
Adjectives and Adverbs are your new best friends.

Adjectivedescribes a noun (person, place, or thing)

Adverbdescribes an action

DESCRIPTION

Be specific and avoid the obvious

Avoid words that dont add any detail: good, bad, fine, pretty, okay, nice, etc Be Specific: instead of saying He was mad say He was furious! The best descriptions go beyond saying the obvious. Dont be afraid to get a little bit poetic.

THE CURSE OF

The word very never works the way you want it to.

Most of the the time we use very to add emphasis. It does the OPPOSITE of adding emphasis.

Lets compare:

Voldemort was very upset that Harry was still alive. Verdict= weak sauce Explanation = words like very make us lazy. We opt for them instead of choosing a stronger more impactful word. Voldemort was upset that Harry was still alive. Voldemort was enraged that Harry Potter was still among the living.

EMBRACE THE METAPHOR LIKE A SIMILE

Metaphors and Similes are great mechanisms for adding description.

DESCRIPTION TABOO

2 minDescribe without using the words autumn or trees

DESCRIPTION TABOO
2 minsDescribe this place without using the words space, sky, night, or moon.

DESCRIPTION TABOO
2 minsDescribe this emotion in terms of your 5 senses.

Without using the words love, heart, or emotion

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PARAGRAPHING TIME!

+ Lars Farf had not always been excessively fearful. Originally,

he was just normally fearful. The one day he came in from the fields and found his house reduced to a pile of smoking ash. Where was his wife, where were his children? Fortunately for him, his wife and children were not at the bottom of the pile of smoking ash, but sprinting joyfully up the road, relieved to find that he wasnt at the bottom of the pile of smoking ash. But the damage had been done: He was now excessively fearful. When he rebuilt the house, he made some changes. The new house had no fireplace. No matches were allowed inside. The house had no stove, and all cooking was to be done in a little shack several hundred yards away. The family was not allowed inside the Cooking Shack. Every hour one of the servants was required to walk around the house, dousing the walls with water from a special FireDousing Bucket, just in case.

Lars Farf had not always been excessively fearful. + Originally, he was just normally fearful. The one day he came

in from the fields and found his house reduced to a pile of smoking ash. Where was his wife, where were his children? Fortunately for him, his wife and children were not at the bottom of the pile of smoking ash, but sprinting joyfully up the road, relieved to find that he wasnt at the bottom of the pile of smoking ash. But the damage had been done: He was now excessively fearful. When he rebuilt the house, he made some changes. The new house had no fireplace. No matches were allowed inside. The house had no stove, and all cooking was to be done in a little shack several hundred yards away. The family was not allowed inside the Cooking Shack. Every hour one of the servants was required to walk around the house, dousing the walls with water from a special Fire-Dousing Bucket, just in case.

Excerpted from Lars Farf, Excessively Fearful Father and Husband by George Saunders

When to start a new paragraph

(why do paragraphs matter?)
1.
2. 3.

When you have a new or slightly new idea

To emphasize a point, or make a contrast between points In dialogue, when a different person speaks

4.
5.

When your reader needs a pause

When you are ending your intro or conclusion

From the OWL and Tim Fredricks ELA Teaching Blog

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ELEMENTS OF A PARAGRAPH

UNITY COHERENCE DEVELOPMENT

UCD BASICS
UNITY: The entire paragraph should concern itself with a single focus. No wandering around mentioning random things that have nothing to do with each other! COHERENCE: This means your paragraph is easy for a reader to follow and understand. You create coherence by building bridges between your sentences. DEVELOPMENT: Help your paragraphs reach maturity-dont abandon them in an awkward tween phase!

Use examples and anecdotes Define terms Evaluate causes, examine effects

(There are more development methods but these are the most relevant to our narratives. See the OWL for more!)

BRIDGES
not just for the Blues Brothers and Spice Girls of the world VERBAL BRIDGES

Repeat key words in several sentences Use of synonyms in several sentences Pronouns referring to nouns in previous sentences Transition words linking ideas from different sentences
LOGICAL BRIDGES

Carrying your topic idea from sentence to sentence

Parallel sentence construction

+ FOCUS!

Think of your narrative as something you can zoom in and out of. Choose the most important or meaningful moments to zoom in on for emphasis by creating a scene using description and dialogue. In between these major scenes you can zoom out and address the intervening time in summary.

SCENES VS. SUMMARIES

SCENE Elijah squatted down next to her. He moved a lot more smoothly than he felt like he ought to be able tohis heart was pounding. Your house got bombed, he said. I know, she snapped. SUMMARY Nicodemus Tolson, whom Elijah had always known as Nico at school, or Malacode online, would not be the first person youd peg to be a gang leader. When Elijah met him freshmen year, he looked like a perfectly ordinary, intelligent kid who was the vice president of the Technology Club and who wore suits to school that made him look a little like an Archangel.

Examples from Freedomland by Anne Bean

SCENES VS. SUMMARIES

So whats the difference? SCENE: Takes place in real-time, like a movie, usually contains dialogue between characters, and should be used for important interactions and events. SUMMARY: Moves quickly, giving the reader important highlights or reminders, and is used for background information. Bits of summary often occur within scenes.

HOMEWORK FOR TUESDAY

1.

Develop a scene that you think you can use in your narrative. Use the concepts weve gone over today. Type this out, bring a copy to class Tuesday, AND post it to Blackboard Learn. Theres no strict limit for the length of this scene, but try to make it at least one double-spaced typed page. Read Mindy Kalings Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me?
Read Jonathan Lethems 13, 1977, 21

2. 3.

NO CONFERENCES NEXT WEEK. If you have questions or want to talk about your memoir, come to office hours or let me know of another time youd like to meet. I can be available during next Wednesdays conference time plus additional times throughout the week.