The Artists Eye

1
The Artists Eye

• Seeing Specific Details

ideas quoted, paraphrased, and modified from
Harry Nodens Image Grammar and Barry Lanes
After the End
2
Remember Digging for Details, Snapshots, and
Thoughtshots?

• Lucile Payne, author of The Lively Art of
  Writing, urges students to transmit information
  to readers exactly as a filmmaker transmits it
  through specific details that readers can see.
  Verbs can give you action shots. Specific details
  can supply the stills (30).

3
Donald Murray, author of The Craft of Revision,
on details

• Checking for specific details is the first thing
  he does when revising.
• The more specific the language, the more the
  reader believes and trusts the writer (188).

4
What do you mean?

• Specific and unique details
• make the story, essay, speech, etc.
• Real
• Interesting
• Have meaning
• Show instead of tell

5
Example

• Fogged camera lens/mental desert/cliché
• Maxine is nervous
• Zoomed camera lens/imagination frenzy/original
• Maxine, glancing at the midnight moon shadows
  from one side of the dark alleyway to the other,
  biting her nails as rivulets of perspiration soak
  her eyebrows

6
Example

• Fogged camera lens/mental desert/cliché
• In came a dog
• Zoomed camera lens/imagination frenzy/original
• In came Charlie, the pit bull, frothing at the
  mouth

7
Specific details, like brushstrokes (and with
brushstrokes), show instead of tell.
8
Robert Newton Peck, author of The Day No Pigs
Would Die and The Art of Successful Fiction,
notes

• Writing is not a butterfly collection of adverbs
  and adjectives. Good fiction is a head on crash
  of nouns and verbs (10).

9
How Why?

• Brushstrokes
• Appositives especially
• Fiction appositives help re-create the illusion
  of reality
• Non-fiction imply an underlying foundation of
  research
• Specific
• Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives
• Not cliché, fresh and original...
• Reader can really see and understand
• Reader can really imagine, think, wonder or
  comprehend

10
Appositives adding authenticity

• This, then, was a fascinating scene unfolding in
  front of me Kissinger, Nobel Laureate, a
  symbolic figure of the old America, with its
  marvelous weapons systems, its dominant role
  among the superpowers, standing in front of
  these less celebrated public servants, who had to
  cope with brutal budgets, expanding social needs,
  deteriorating infrastructures, and public service
  institutions that often seem overwhelmed by the
  pressures they faced. America, I thought, meet
  America. (10) David Halberstam describing Henry
  Kissinger in The Next Century

11
Specific Unique NounsThe Things They Carried
by Tim Obrien

• The things they carried were largely determined
  by necessity. Among the necessities or
  near-necessities, were P-38 can openers, pocket
  knives, heat tabs, wristwatches, dog tags,
  mosquito repellent, chewing gum, candy,
  cigarettes, salt tablets, packets of Kool-Aid,
  lighters, matches, sewing kits, Military Payment
  Certificates, C rations, and two or three
  canteens of water. Together, these items weighed
  between 15-20 pounds, depending on a mans habits
  or rate of metabolism. Henry Dobbins, who was a
  big man, carried extra rations he was especially
  fond of canned peaches in heavy syrup over pound
  cake. Dave Jensen, who also practiced field
  hygiene, carried a toothbrush, dental floss, and
  several hotel-sized bars of soap hed stolen on
  RR in Sydney, Australia. As a hedge against bad
  times, however, Kiowa also carried his
  grandmothers distrust of the white man, his
  grandfathers old hunting hatchet.

12
Specific Verbs

• Avoid words like looked, moved, went, etc.
• Use words that paint actions like
• Gant snapped his eyes C. Thomas Firefox
• My fingers whispered over his cheek K. Hesse
  Phoenix Rising
• Wiglaf dodged, danced, flitted out of range R.
  Nye Beowulf A New Telling

Passive He was surprised to see the look on her
face, which oddly seemed familiar to him. Active
(and verb choice) Heart dropping, his eyes
widened when he saw the look on her face, which
oddly seemed familiar to him. - Franziska
Crutchfield
13
Compare Mark Twains use of verbs with Tom Sawyer

• They presently emerged into the clump of sumac
  bushes, looked warily out, found the coast clear,
  and were soon lunching and smoking in the skiff.
  As the sun dipped toward the horizon, they pushed
  out and got under way. Tom skimmed up the shore
  through the long twilight, chatting cheerily with
  Huck, and landed shortly after dark. (549)

• They presently came out of the bushes. The coast
  was clear, so they got in the skiff. They had
  lunch and smoked. As the sun went down, they went
  out on the water. Tom moved along the shore. He
  talked and then came back to shore shortly after
  dark.

14
Natalie Goldberg exercise from Writing Down the
Bones

• Fold a notebook piece of paper lengthwise hotdog
  style
• On the left write down 10 nouns
• On the right, without referring to the other
  list, list 10 verbs
• Cook
• Mechanic
• Play with the combinations to create three unique
  pictures (sentences.)
• Example She felt pureed by her editors
  continual criticism of her writing.
• Title it Unique Word Combos

15
Weigh the ValueNo Adjectives or Strong
Adjectives

• John Steinbeck about his novel East of Eden I
  want to go through it before it is typed and take
  out even the few adjectives I have let slip in
  (6).
• Ernest Hemingway says Ezra Pound taught me to
  distrust adjectives (134).

16
adjectives are like clichés or image blanks

• the beautiful mountains
• Formless, creates an opinion instead of a picture
• Sterile labels, leaving nothing to engage the
  visual imagination
• Often lack purpose, jammed in to just add
  meaningless detail
• What does not add detracts from it (Mendlwitz
  and Wakeham 316)

17
Blah Adjective ListK. Hess Enhancing Writing
Through Imagery (not all 179 words are listed)

• Brave
• Caring
• Dependable
• Fearful
• Friendly
• Immature
• lazy

• Nervous
• Observant
• Patient
• Perceptive
• Shy
• Sociable
• trusting

18
If you must use an occasional blah adjective

• Follow or precede the adjective with specific
  images
• Do not have conflicting or distracting adjectives
• Minimizes the effectiveness of one, both, or all
• Make sure the adjective adds meaning not just
  there to be there

19
Link Without ClunkinessUse Prepositional
Words Phrases

• Preposition
• Links nouns, pronouns, and phrases to other words
  in the sentence
• The book is on the table.
• The book is beneath the table.
• The book is leaning against the table.
• The book is beside the table.
• She held the book over the table.
• She read the book during class.

20
Prepositional Phrases

• Begin with prepositional words
• Indicate relationship of time, space, or
  connection of some sort
• Can function as a noun, adjective, or adverb

21
Examples from HyperGrammarhttp//www.arts.uottawa
.ca/writcent/hypergrammar/grammar.html

• The children climbed the mountain without fear.
• In this sentence, the preposition "without"
  introduces the noun "fear." The prepositional
  phrase "without fear" functions as an adverb
  describing how the children climbed.
• There was rejoicing throughout the land when the
  government was defeated.
• Here, the preposition "throughout" introduces the
  noun phrase "the land." The prepositional phrase
  acts as an adverb describing the location of the
  rejoicing.
• The spider crawled slowly along the banister.
• The preposition "along" introduces the noun
  phrase "the banister" and the prepositional
  phrase "along the banister" acts as an adverb,
  describing where the spider crawled.
• The dog is hiding under the porch because it
  knows it will be punished for chewing up a new
  pair of shoes.
• Here the preposition "under" introduces the
  prepositional phrase "under the porch," which
  acts as an adverb modifying the compound verb "is
  hiding."
• The screenwriter searched for the manuscript he
  was certain was somewhere in his office.
• Similarly in this sentence, the preposition "in"
  introduces a prepositional phrase "in his
  office," which acts as an adverb describing the
  location of the missing papers.

22
Adding Details with Metaphors and Similes

• Generate an image webbing pattern in the readers
  mind
• Added power comes from one image linking to
  another and to another
• Lead readers on a uniquely personal journey down
  their own imaginative trail

23
Examples Quoted inOne Made with Wine and Other
Similes by Elyse and Mike Sommer

• A pure white mist crept over the water like
  breath upon a mirror. A.J. Cronin (272)
• His eyes skewed round to meet yours and then
  cannoned off again like a pool-ball. Sean Virgo
  (254)
• The smile of a man with a terminal headache. T.
  Boyle (380)
• Her white silk robe flowed over her like a milk
  shower. Harold Adams (380)
• A desolate, cratered face, sooty with care like
  an abandoned mining town. Joseph Heller (154)
• Love is like a wind stirring the grass beneath
  the trees on a black night. Sherwood Anderson
  (258)
• felt like a deer stepping out before the rifle
  of a hunter. Piers Anthony (162)
• Eerie as a man carving his own epitaph. William
  McIlvaney (389).

24
Constructing Specific Images in Dialogue

• Use details as part of the conversation
• Check out Gary Paulsens example on the next
  slide

25

• Gary Paulsen's Dialogue Images
• "What's the matter?"
• "Nothing. The guy came and fixed the plumbing.
  Short guy with a bald head and chewing snoose all
  the time, hair out his shoulders
• "And a dog that goobers in your ear. That's
  Emil Aucht."
• "Yeah. That's the one. I got too close to his
  truck and the dog got me. He came and fixed the
  plumbing."
• "So what's the matter?
• "It's your mother---she's in the kitchen."
• Wil went across the room and into the kitchen,
  where his mother was leaning over the sink,
  scrubbing with a sponge, her eyes closed while
  the hot water poured. She looked up when Wil
  walked in. "You could have told me "
• "Told you what?"
• "Told me we'd have to boil the whole house
  after he left." Her face was gray. "I mean he
  walked over and spit in the sink. Just walked
  over and let go with this big " She couldn't
  finish. --- Gary Paulsen, The Island

26
Whats the assignment?

• Copy and paste a descriptive part of your story
  to another Word document
• Read your description aloud to a partner
• While you read, your partner draws what you
  describe
• Discuss and write down what you learned from the
  process
• Pros, cons, successes, struggles
• Switch to opposite role repeat
• Revise your description, highlighting changes
• Change generic verbs nouns to unique verbs and
  nouns
• Wipe out unnecessary adjectives
• Add descriptors, like participial phrases, to
  vague adjectives
• Throw in some cool similes and/or metaphors
• Turn in original description with drawing,
  process notes, and revised description