The car passes and you can't see through the dark windows and you can hear the snow crunching under the tires, squeaky and frozen. Freak the Mighty Rodman Philbrick
"In a warm and sultry forest far, far away, there once lived a mother fruit bat and her new baby. Oh, how Mother Bat loved her soft, tiny baby. “I’ll name you Stellaluna,” she crooned. Each night, Mother Bat would carry Stellaluna clutched to her breast as she flew out to search for food."
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
"The Gift of the Magi" opening by O Henry
I use this story-opening as a model for imitation: students are urged to use functional fragments to illustrate the dramatic thoughts of someone who is very frustrated or stymied with a situation or condition in life.
lajj said… All from The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak p. 206 "They both nightmared." "A patch of voice escaped his mouth." p. 246 "There's a Jew in my basement." … "As the book quivered in her lap, the secret sat in her mouth. It made itself comfortable. It crossed its legs." p. 422 "His hangover was visible. It heaved itself to his shoulders and sat there like a bag of wet cement." p. 472 "As she crossed the river, a rumor of sunshine stood behind the clouds."
10 comments:
"This is a snail shell, round, full, and glossy as a horse chestnut.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gift from the Sea
The car passes and you can't see through the dark windows and you can hear the snow crunching under the tires, squeaky and frozen.
Freak the Mighty
Rodman Philbrick
"In a warm and sultry forest far, far away, there once lived a mother fruit bat and her new baby. Oh, how Mother Bat loved her soft, tiny baby. “I’ll name you Stellaluna,” she crooned. Each night, Mother Bat would carry Stellaluna clutched to her breast as she flew out to search for food."
Stellaluna by Janell Cannon
"I thought about something Rahim khan had said just before he hung up... There is a way to be good again."
The Kite Runner
Author:Khaled Hosseini
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
"The Gift of the Magi" opening by O Henry
I use this story-opening as a model for imitation: students are urged to use functional fragments to illustrate the dramatic thoughts of someone who is very frustrated or stymied with a situation or condition in life.
lajj said…
All from The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
p. 206 "They both nightmared." "A patch of voice escaped his mouth."
p. 246 "There's a Jew in my basement." … "As the book quivered in her lap, the secret sat in her mouth. It made itself comfortable. It crossed its legs."
p. 422 "His hangover was visible. It heaved itself to his shoulders and sat there like a bag of wet cement."
p. 472 "As she crossed the river, a rumor of sunshine stood behind the clouds."
I call it the "Dash and description": (zooms into details, creates emphasis)
I stared at my father’s photograph—his thin face stern, lips latched tight, his eyes peering permanently to the right (Seedfolks, Paul Fleischman 1).
My imitation: I walked to the run-down market—dirty white walls, roof sinking in, the door constantly swinging against the wall.
"Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can every quite cheapen." Ian McEwan
Atonement
Really, it is most unreasonable to demand that a man should think of other people so much better than he is able to think of himself.
Nostromo
Joseph Conrad
"I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had passed away." Revelations
Hall, Donald. Writing Well. p.169
This sentence is perfectly balanced without grammatically parallel structure.
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