Writing Exercises

[narelle]

So I stumbled upon THIS site (quite literally - I was on the site StumbleUpon) which had some interesting writing exercises that I thought you all may like. So...why not try them?

Post your attempt at any one of these, or suggest/link to an exercise of your own and I'll add it to this post!

Who knows, perhaps the Madame Dictator will award some house points for this?

EDIT:

And another! I thought this site was neat - they give you a word and one minute to write about it. Give it a try!

OneWord

[dreamingofroses]

This is the exercise I have chosen to attempt:
Focus on verbs: Find a passage that you admire (about a page of prose) and examine all of the verbs in each sentence. Are they "active," "passive," or "linking?" If they are active, are they transitive or intransitive? Are they metaphorical (Mary floated across the floor.)? What effects do verbs have on your reading of the passage?

I'm going to make active verbs green (for good), passive verbs red (for bad), and linking verbs blue (for decent). I'm going to italicize the metaphorical verbs... if there are any. As for transitive/intransitive... well...I'll put an asterisk (*) by transitive verbs.
My randomly chosen passage is from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins:
"Suddenly, the birds fall silent. Then one gives* a high-pitched warning call. A single note. Just like the one Gale and I heard when the redheaded Avox girl was caught. High above the dying campfire a hovercraft materializes. A set of large metal teeth drops down. Slowly, gently, the dead tribute girl is lifted into the hovercraft. Then it vanishes. The birds resume* their song. "

If you disagree with any of my... labels. Feel free to help. (This is harder than I thought!!!)

*****

Anyway, my thoughts on changing the verbs/sentence structure are relatively limited. I mean, although I said passive tense is bad, if we were to try to free the passage of all passive verbs, it may not be half as good.
For instance, "Just like the one Gale and I heard when the redheaded Avox girl was caught," could be written as, "Just like the one Gale and I heard when the Capitol captured the redheaded Avox girl." That immediately erases the passive voice from the context, however, because it's from the past, it's best read in the passive voice rather than an active one. This single sentence can be dissected to show that every sentence matters.

With the linking verbs, our mind tends to read them as active verbs until we stop to think about it, so there's really no reason to bother touching Collins' writing style even if I DO believe it'd be read better this way: "A set of large metal teeth descends."

As for figurative language, such as metaphors, it would ruin the book's realism. The straight-forward language gives a realism to the story that makes readers feel for the characters. Adding the sparkly pixie dust to brighten it up would be contradictory to the purpose.

That's all I have to say about that.