Transcript Action Verb
Integrating Grammar Into Your Writing How is a writer like an artist? CONCEPTS • Pictures – Not made of flowers, guitars, people, etc. – Made with elements of art: shapes, tones, directions, sizes, lines, textures, and colors • Writing – Not constructed only from experiences, information, characters, or plots – From fundamental artistic elements of nature 5 Basic Brush Strokes • The participle • The absolute • The appositive • Shifted adjectives • Action verbs Painting with Participles • Picture in your mind’s eye, a nest of snakes curling around some prey. Which image captures the picture? The diamond scaled snakes attacked their prey. Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey. Painting More with Participles • Picture in your mind’s eye, rats nearby. Which image captures the picture? The sewer rats devoured their food. Wailing, shoving, and gnawing, the sewer rats devoured their food. Participles Evoke Action – Hissing their forked red tongues and coiling their cold bodies, the diamond scaled snakes attacked their prey. – Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully, he washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged, for more than a minute, watching blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against his hand as the boat moved. » -Old Man and the Sea (56-57) Participles Evoke Action – Wailing their high-pitched voices and shoving their skeletal cold bodies, the sewer rats devoured the school lunch thrown in the dumpster. – Howling with pain, the troll twisted and flailed its club with Harry clinging on for dear life; any second, the troll was going to rip him off or catch him a terrible blow with the club. » -Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling) Capture this picture by using a participle in your description. Absolute • A two-word combination – A noun and an ing or ed verb added onto a sentence. • Example: –The cat climbed the tree. (no absolute) –Claws digging, feet kicking, the cat climbed the tree. • Mind racing, anxiety overtaking, the diver peered once more at the specimen. (E. Stralka) • I glanced at my clock, digits glowing fluorescent blue in the inky darkness of my room. (J. Coppolo) • Jaws cracking, tongue curling, the kitten yawned tiredly, awaking from her nap. (T. Tesmer) • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • NOUNS Mind Jaws Tongue Anxiety Arms Legs Heart Eyes Breath Mouth Tail Legs Hands Fur Back Feet • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ING VERBS (PARTICIPLES) Racing Pounding Stretching Working Hunching Darting Staring Exhaling Kicking Swimming Cracking Building Curling Stiffening Beating Lifting Shaking Trembling Hanging Screaming Capture this picture by using an absolute in your description. Painting with Appositives • A noun that adds a second image to a preceding noun – Expands details in the reader’s imagination Enhance the First Image • The raccoon enjoys eating turtle eggs. • The raccoon, a scavenger, enjoys eating turtle eggs. • The raccoon, a midnight scavenger who roams lake shorelines in search of food, enjoys eating turtle eggs. The volcano, a ravenous god of fire, spewed forth lava and ash across the mountain. (B. Quagliata) The old Navajo woman, a weak and withered lady, stared blankly. (J. Vadnal) The fish, a slimy mass of flesh, felt the alligator’s giant teeth sink into his scales as he struggled to get away. (L. Kannen) Capture this picture by using an appositive in your description. Painting with Adjectives Shifted Out of Order • Used more often by fiction authors – Amplify the details of image Correcting the Overload of Description • The large, red-eyed, angry bull moose charged the intruder. Better– The large bull moose, red-eyed and angry, charged at the intruder. The old woman, aged and wrinkled, smiled upon her newborn great-grandson with pride. (S. Schwallie) The boxer, twisted and tormented, felt no compassion for his contender. (C. Hloros) The cheetah, tired and hungry, stared at the gazelle, which would soon become his dinner. (Z. Vesoulis) Capture this picture by using shifted adjectives in your description. Painting with Action Verbs • Eliminating passive voice (communicate no action) • Reducing being verbs • Action verbs replace still photos with motion pictures • Bring an inanimate object to life with action verbs Being Verb: The gravel road was on the left side of the barn. Action Verb: The gravel road curled around the left side of the barn. First Draft Rockwell was a beautiful lake. Canadian geese could be heard across the water bugled like tuneless trumpets. Near the shore, two children were hidden behind a massive maple tree. Watching quietly, they hoped to see the first gosling begin to hatch. Final Draft Rockwell Lake echoed with the sounds of Canadian geese. Their honking bugled across the water like tuneless trumpets. Two children hid behind a massive maple tree. They silently watched, hoping to see the first gosling hatch. COMBINING STROKES Then it crawled in. A spider, a repulsive, hairy creature, no bigger than a tarantula, crawled into the room. It crawled across the floor up onto his nightstand and stopped, as if it were staring at him. He reached for a nearby copy of Sports Illustrated, rolled it up, and swatted the spider with all his might. He looked over only to see a hideous mass of eyes and legs. He had killed it. Just then, another one crawled in, following the same path as the first. He killed that one too. Then another one came, and another, and another. There were hundreds of them! Hands trembling, sweat dripping from his face, he flung the magazine left and right, trying to kill the spiders, but there were too many. He dropped the magazine.