20 Explain what is meant by: 1. After the fire drill was over, we re-entered the building. Now I raced up the stairs, stepping on the heels of the slowpoke ahead of me. 2. I was out of my seat in a flash, heading for the teacher’s desk, when a redheaded girl across the aisle tripped me up. 3. She leaned over me as I lay sprawled on the floor and hissed in my ear. 4. Slowly I began to erase the troublesome incident from my consciousness, and my fear began to fade. 5. I came home that afternoon more mixed up than ever but determined not to stick my neck out. 6. … I fled out the front door in my stockinged feet, going forty miles an hour, my heart pounding like a jackhammer in my chest. QUESTIONS FOR STUDY AND DISCUSSION 1. Comment on the first sentence of the story /part I/. Is it an effective beginning? 2. Speak on the role of rhetorical questions in the story. What do they add to the text? 3. Why is the story divided into two parts? Do you observe any difference between the ways the actions develop in “Gun in the Desk” and in “Man Overboard”? 4. Point out three sentences in the story that keep you in suspense. 5. Point out the climax of the story. Account for your answer. 6. Copy out some concrete verbs that do justice not only to the bare facts of the event but to its “feeling” as well. 7. Look at the first sentence of the last paragraph/part II/: “At the corner of Main and Maple Streets I ran headlong into traffic and was almost run over by a cruising police car.” Would the story be improved by more specific details at this point? Make up two sentences that would be more specific than the sentences from the story. 21 8. Comment on the role of direct quotations. Would the expressiveness of the writing gain or lose if they were introduced in indirect speech. Why? 9. In the last paragraph of the story, one sentence reads, “In talking to the detective later, I learned how my unwillingness to get involved had led to the near death of the armored car driver.” Would the story have been better if this had been written out as direct quotation, as a dialogue between the narrator and the detective? Why? 10. Do you consider the conclusion an effective one. Would you change anything in it? EXPAND YOUR VOCABULARY Match the words from the story in Column A with their definitions in Column B A B 1) to scold a) to disappear suddenly and/or in a way that you cannot explain 2) to stagger b) to make a feeling, an idea, a memory, come into your mind 3) to stumble c) to warn sb about the possible dangers or problems of sth 4) to trip d) an act of running or driving after sb/sth in order to catch them 5) troublesome e) to remove sth completely 6) to erase f) to walk with weak unsteady steps, as if you are about to fall 7) to vanish g) the state of being able to use your senses and mental powers to understand what is happening 8) to caution h) to hit your foot against sth while you are walking or running and almost fall 22 9) to summon up i) to catch sb's foot and make them fall or almost fall 10) chase j) air that is difficult to see through because it contains very small drops of water, especially caused by hot weather 11) to pound k) to speak angrily to sb, especially a child, because they have done sth wrong 12) coincidence l) a long steady look at sb/sth 13) consciousness m) causing trouble, pain, etc. over a long period of time 14) to glare n) (of heart) to beat quickly and loudly 15) gaze o) to look at sb/sth in an angry way 16) haze p) the fact of two things happening at the same time by chance, in a surprising way YOUR TURN I. Here is an outline of a story written by a student. Read it over and then try to write the story from the outline. Imagine the details. 1. I came back from school and found the house empty. 2. “Anybody home?” I called. 3. A strong, dangerous-looking man appeared at the top of the stairs with our TV set in his hands. 4. I turned and ran for the door. 5. When I turned the doorknob, it came off in my hands. 6. I tried to force the door open but only succeeded in falling flat on my face. 7. The man came up to me and screamed. 23 8. He said, “I’m the TV repair man. Your folks know I am here.” 9. He helped me up. 10. My parents came home. 11. We got the doorknob repaired. II. Think of something unexpected that happened to you that could make an interesting story. It could be a recent event, or something way back in the past. Note: 1. It’s best if the event took a very short time – ten minutes, or an hour. Don’t go beyond a day or a week. 2. Think of something unusual, surprising, embarrassing, or painful; an experience that turned from bad to good, or from good to bad. III. Write a narrative essay on one of the topics below: 1. The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. /Samuel Johnson/ 2. What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. /Walter Scott/ Supplementary Reading: Hairston, M.: “Successful Writing”. Langan, T.: “College Writing Skills With Readings”. Meriwether, N.: “Writing Essays. Strategies for Success”. 24 UNIT 2 Description A writer has three ways to communicate a message: by 1) implying it, 2) telling it, or 3) showing it. Of course, all three types of writing serve specific and important purposes. Usually, however, writing that is clearest and has the greatest impact uses language that shows what you wish to communicate. Words that show are more concrete, specific, and usually more interesting than those that simply tell the reader what you want to say, and they are always more direct than language that only implies or suggests what you mean. Language that shows makes for effective and interesting writing, especially when your purpose is to describe a person or a place or to tell a story. When you describe something or someone, you give your readers a picture in words. To make this “word picture” as vivid and real as possible, you must observe and record specific details that appeal to your readers’ senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch). More than any other type of writing, a descriptive writing needs sharp, colorful details. Thus, there are three important things to remember about language that shows: it is concrete, it is specific, and it is vivid. MAKING YOUR WRITING CONCRETE Concrete language points to or identifies something that the reader can experience or has experienced with his senses. Giving the readers a straightforward, realistic account of how things look, smell, sound, taste or feel is one of the most effective ways to make your writing concrete. The sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feel of things that the reading of description calls up in our minds are known as images. 25 Compare: Abstract Concrete Affection kiss, embrace Violence punch, shove, kick Anger shout, yell, grunt Joy laugh, giggle MAKING YOUR WRITING SPECIFIC Writing that lacks specificity often contains language that is general, which makes it difficult for the writer to communicate clearly and completely. One of the best ways to make your language more specific is to use carefully chosen nouns. Compare: General More Specific Most Specific Residence house three-bedroom cottage Tree evergreen young pine TV show quiz Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? MAKING YOUR WRITING VIVID Besides using figurative language (metaphor, simile, epithet, etc.) you can make your writing vivid by choosing verbs, adjectives and adverbs carefully. Compare: 1) The old church needed repair. The pre-Civil War Baptist church cried out for repairs to its tottering steeple, its crumbling stone foundation, and its cracked stained-glass windows. 2) An old homeless person was in an alley among some garbage. 26 The body of a homeless man, his face wrinkled and blistered, lay in a pile of oil-covered rags and filthy cardboard boxes piled in the corner of a long alley devoid of life and light. MASTERS OF DESCRIPTION Charles Dickens and Somerset Maugham were masters of the art of description. Readers of their novels are presented with visual treats, page after page. The following two selections are fine examples of the descriptive technique. As you read them, be prepared to explain their strengths: 1. Mr. Squeer’s appearance was not prepossessing. He had but one eye, and the popular prejudice runs in favour of two. The eye he had was unquestionably useful, but decidedly not ornamental: being of a greenish gray, and in shape resembling the fan-light of a street door. The blank side of his face was much wrinkled and puckered up, which gave him a very sinister appearance, especially when he smiled, at which times his expression bordered closely on the villainous. His hair was very flat and shiny, save at the ends, where it was brushed stiffly up from a low protruding forehead, which assorted well with his harsh voice and coarse manner. He was about two or three and fifty, and a trifle below the middle size; he wore a white neckerchief with long ends, and a suit of scholastic black; but his coat sleeves, being a great deal too short, made him appear ill at ease in his clothes, and as if he were in a perpetual state of astonishment at finding himself so respectable. from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens Did You Note The frightening aspect оf the one-eyed man? His wrinkles? The careful description of his hair? The treatment of Squeer’s clothing? The way the author begins with a single detail, and builds to a picture of the whole man? 27 2. But Tiaré Johnson would never under any circumstances have been rich. She could not keep money. The daughter of a native and an English sea-captain settled in Tahiti, when I knew her she was a woman of fifty, who looked older, and of enormous proportions. Tall and extremely stout, she would have been of imposing presence if the great good nature of her face had not made it impossible for her to express anything but kindliness. Her arms were like legs of mutton, her breasts like giant cabbages; her face, broad and fleshy, gave you an impression of almost indecent nakedness, and vast chin succeeded to vast chin. I do not know how many of them there were. They fell away voluminously into the capaciousness of her bosom. She was dressed usually in a pink Mother Hubbard, and she wore all day long a large straw hat. But when she let down her hair which she did now and then, for she was vain of it, you saw that it was long and dark and curly; and her eyes had remained young and vivacious. Her laughter was the most catching I ever heard; it would begin, a low peal in her throat, and would grow louder and louder till her whole vast body shook. She loved three things - a joke, a glass of wine, and a handsome man. To have known her was a privilege. from The Moon and Sixpence by W. S. Maugham Did You Note The minute, detailed description of her arms, chin, face? her breasts? her hair? her voice? The way the author builds the picture around Tiar é ’s most striking feature – the enormity of her proportions? Point out the language means the authors employ to make the descriptions concrete, specific and vivid. How do they help you to visualize the persons described. Do the descriptions give you an idea of Mr. Squeer and Tiar é ’s personality as well as of their appearance? 28 Tips for successful writing Support: Details When you write about a person you want the reader to feel in the end “I know this person; I understand something about the kind of person he or she is”. A vivid portrait of a person is very likely to include information about his physical features, his behaviour, his speech and his manner of dressing. Organization: Coherence When describing, you can put concrete details into a spatial pattern (spatial order), according to any arrangement you think best. For example, you might describe a place from east to west, from left to right or from larger items to smaller ones; an object from top to bottom or from inside to outside; and a person from head to toe. By using adequate transitions you can prevent your reader from getting lost as the description proceeds. Mood The feeling that a piece of writing creates is called the mood. A topic sentence usually prepares the reader for a certain way of looking at a subject. If, for example, a topic sentence says “The old house smelled dank and strange” the reader will expect the writing to describe a frightening or a depressing place. Tone The author’s attitude toward his or her subject is called the tone which may be mocking, ironic, playful, or serious. 29 YOUR TURN 1. Select an exquisite piece of description of a place or a person from fiction. Comment on its organization, the concrete details, specific words, figurative language and carefully chosen words that contribute to the creation of a vivid image. 2. Following the tips given above write a paragraph describing either a person or a place. Supplementary Reading: Hairston, M.: “Successful Writing”. Langan, T.: “College Writing Skills With Readings”. Meriwether, N.: “Writing Essays. Strategies for Success”. . the story /part I/. Is it an effective beginning? 2. Speak on the role of rhetorical questions in the story. What do they add to the text? 3. Why is the. Writing”. Langan, T.: “College Writing Skills With Readings”. Meriwether, N.: “Writing Essays. Strategies for Success”. 24 UNIT 2 Description A writer has three