Blog #3

Style Exercises

Exercise #3: Options in Modification/Intensification

The thunder and lightning cracked the ___ blue sky as pellets of water hit the window and the ________ summer ground outside. The ______ air locked her up inside as she sets herself up for a ______ night and the _____ of solitude. The _____ ________ flames from the candles throughout the room were the only sources of light. ____ music in the background, almost a ______ to the _____ _______ thunder. Before sitting down, she makes herself a cup of hot tea. The steam that ____________ flows out of the cup into the ______ air as she finally sits down. As she opens the pages of the book that she has been waiting to read for weeks, she notices the perfection of the setting that surrounds her.

I chose this exercise just because the main objective of this paper was to describe and use as much detail as possible to describe yourself. Without adjectives and adverbs, the paragraph seems to be bland. You can still see a little bit about me but the adjectives and adverbs truly take the role in making the paragraph sound good and describes me as an individual.

Exercise #9: Tone-Coloring

One-Syllable:

Floating in this sea of blue. The only home I knew. Roads with weird heights and slopes is now the home that I will know. Change from my home there to my home now, those at home are not here, not within reach; mom, dad, my sister by blood, and my sister by choice. Poles apart but also pulled apart for a better life. This new phase of life that comes about for many, is finally here and now real.

The lack of variation between word-lengths and sentence-lengths really does make a difference in a paragraph, imagine how much of an effect it would have in a 4 page paper. The variety of words that the author uses is what makes the writing interesting and what grabs the attention of the reader/audience.