If you need inspiration, explore the authors linked above, or check out our quotes from poets like ”H.D.” Hilda Doolitle and Gerard Manley Hopkins, novelists like Angela Carter, or songwriters like Tori Amos and Tom Waits. We can teach people which forms of English are acceptable without thinking of the more colloquial phrases and words... #2. Sensory experiences? A great metaphor can elevate an ordinary piece of writing to the realm of poetry. It is a lion you cage in your study. This writer describes what she saw and heard without embellishing it with unnecessary details. Oh, wait a minute, that’s next week. The painting was a field of flowers, blues and yellows atop deep green stems that seemed to call the viewer in to play. Do you think there’s a common denominator that ties these examples of good writing together? “Cocaine was strictly for parties, to enhance my Tae Bo workout, to motivate me to clean my apartment, and occasionally to snort off a stripper’s ass during a threesome – whatever, it was the ‘90s,” writes Marta Ravin in the “Baby Powder” essay. I examine how and why their writing works. And that’s okay. Writing skills are not god-given talents. Her last smile to me wasn’t a sunset. Examples include that of advertisements or photo captions. Copyright © 2020 Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen. Examples of Descriptive Writing. A writer’s revelation doesn’t have to go on for pages or chapters. Money was scarce. So, here’s a list of qualities of excellent writing, to help you measure your progress. It is barely domesticated, a mustang on which you one day fastened a halter, but which now you cannot catch. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. But it will never do, you know. Saint. Suddenly, her folks want to kill me. It envisions a future with no bounds, just limitless possibilities. “I was born in an empty sea, My tears created oceansProducing tsunami waves with emotionsPatrolling the open seas of an unknown galaxyI was floating in front of who I am physicallySpiritually paralyzing mind body and soulIt gives me energy when I’m lyrically exercisingI gotta spit ‘til the story is told in a dream by celestial bodiesFollow me baby”, The heavy metal band Opeth uses vivid descriptive writing to evoke loneliness in their song “Windowpane.”, “Blank face in the windowpaneMade clear in seconds of lightDisappears and returns againCounting hours, searching the night”. He sighs. To learn how to turn a four-point rubric into a letter grade, use the basic writing rubric below as an example. Personality traits of the writer? Here’s a fragment from Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridien, a book for which he won _ prize: “They traded the mule accoutered as it was for a Texas stock saddle, bare tree with rawhide cover, not new but sound. A great metaphor can elevate an ordinary piece of writing to the realm of poetry. One was on a table by a big bowl of fruit, and it just stared at me, holding an apple, midbite.”. Exposition â Otherwise known as expository writing which aims to explain or inform. And I was curious about whether he really did struggle with cancer, and how he makes a living as a writer. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, When the evening is spread out against the sky. find logic in situations and poses questions in connection to probing maverick ideas or solutions. But it seems a lot of people get hung up on perfectionism and the tiny details (such as my friend and fellow author who is now on rewrite number 2000 of his first novel.) Here’s an example of good writing – it’s a metaphor: “A work in progress quickly becomes feral,” said Annie Dillard. In Alfred Tennyson's "The Eagle," he conveys power and majesty in just a few lines: "He clasps the crag with crooked hands;Close to the sun in lonely lands,Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;He watches from his mountain walls,And like a thunderbolt he falls.". Ready to Submit Your Sample Chapters to a Book Publisher? Download. Photoshop vs Illustrator: Which Work Best for You? A real writer. Lesson: Punctuation exists as a means to an end, not the end in itself. Lesson: Prose doesn’t have to be flowery to be good. The cardinal rises. Boatman. Lesson: Short paragraphs are easier to read and write, but long paragraphs with complex sentences can be very rewarding in the hands of a skilled writer.