Shaping a Text: Work for Week 10 

Thinking about 'description'

Description is seldom a value in itself.   It has to do something, such as making the person or object or scene 'come alive',   or 'show'  the reader through their feelings and experience, what the writing is thinking/feeling

One way of describing is to pick out significant details and make them suggest the whole scene, or person or object.   This is most effective if the description is  done without any explanations.    

Try the following

(1)  By by picking out no more than two significant details,  no explanation,  or comment give us a sense of:

• ·         A sitting room belonging to someone with plenty of money
• ·         A  sitting room belonging to someone with very little money
• ·         A field in the early morning
• ·         Someone laughing
• ·         Someone walking painfully

(3)

Describe these sounds using a brief simile (comparison).

• ·         A car being started
• ·         A dog walking on a pavement
• ·         A loose cough
• ·         The toilet being flushed upstairs

(4)

Rewrite (3) was riddles