Thursday, September 18, 2008
Student Samples of Published Authors' Settings
Here's where you can put in short (no more than 50 words, please) examples of favourite setting writing by an author you have read. Choose a segment that has pleasing sentence structures, outstanding description etc. Please also give a short (up to 25 words) reason for submitting it to us and identify the author's full name and the full title, also.
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15 comments:
A Setting I like
All around the edge of the town encroached a genuine jungle. Vines and creepers sprawled everywhere—up posts, across roofs, along walls. Trees sprouted casually in the middle of the road, or had houses built around them or perhaps had through the houses.
—43 words
It comes from Colleen McCullough’s novel The Thorn Birds and it shows me that how wild the place my favorite protagonist, Meggie, will live in.
A Short Setting from “Ransom,” by Julie Garwood
Golden ribbons of sunlight streamed into the room and, like silken banners, floated in the gentle summer breeze. They danced along the stone floor. She could see particles of dust in the air, could smell the musty scent of mildew in the bedcover.
-43 words
I like the description of the sunlight. It brings me warm feeling after I read much descriptions of darkness in this book.
The setting i like is from 'to kill a mockingbird' by harper lee...^^*
Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rain weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade on the live oaks in the square….
Words: 69.
I love this piece of writing because I can clearly see what Maycomb looks like and can predict what will happen during the summertime.
Example 0ne. The master’s setting:
Outside even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold. Down the street little eddies of wind were swirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere. –By George Orwell: Nineteen Eighty—Four, Part 1, Chapter 1. P.7.
Comment:
Orwell used the juxtaposed past progressives (were swirling, was shining) to list the things existed at the same time. Forming a long sentence Orwell showed us a cold, no colored and boring world. The craft is clever and effective.
Imitating:
Outside even through the doubled-layered window that full of ice flowers, the world looked cold. Down the street the howling wind was carrying snow rushing the road and swirling them into spirals at the corner, and though the Sun was shining and the sky blue, there seemed to be no heat transmitting to this freeze land, except the bitter cold.
Example Two. The master’s piece:
She loves her clothes. She knows her clothes. Her favorite moment of the day is this moment, standing at the closet door, still a little dizzy from her long night of tumbled sleep, biting her lip, thinking hard, moving the busy hangers along the rod, about to make up her mind.
--By Carol Shields: Dressing Up for the Carnival, Imprints 12, p. 92.
Comment: All of the sentences are simple ones. Some are very short; the last is very long. The short ones transmit the cheerful and lively emotion of a girl directly. Through the modifying phases (standing at, biting her lip, thinking hard, moving the busy fingers), the long sentence describes the girl’s action in detail. The description is minute and lively.
Imitating :
He loves delicious food. He knows every restaurant in this town. His favorite moment is the moment, sitting by the dining table, still a little stuffed from the last big meal not long ago, watching at the menu, biting his lip, thinking hard about which dishes he would order.
We walked quickly through the night. North and South Mountains closed off the sky behind us and far ahead, but a full moon made it easy to our way on the frosty road. The hill country was full of scrub growth, stubby spruce, and sprawling alders, unlike the tidy fields and orchards and the tough ground, and the moonlight gave a still dignity to the shabby houses.
comments: what a clear picture of a cold winter night in a small village!
Lovely, Beatrice. Who wrote it and in what book?
This big, round, ruined pile of brike started life as a glorious mausoleum, built by Octavian Augustus to house his remains and the remains of his family for all of eternity. It must have been impossible for the emperor to have imagined at the time that Rome would ever be anything but a mighty Augustus-worshipping empire. How could he possibly have seen the collapse of the realm? Or known that, with all the aqueducts destroyed by barbarians and with the great roads left in ruin, the city would empty of citizens, and it would take almost twenty centuries before Rome ever recovered the population she had boasted during her Height of glory?(EAT,PRAY,LOVE BY Elizabeth Gilbert)
I choose this text because right now I reading it.
It's come from The Leaving by Budge Wilson. From the book The Short Stroy when I have read partly during summer school.
How to use this tags anywa?????
A short setting from “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely, and the grass was richly green.
-28 words
A setting from"lady Chatterley's lover", by D.H. Lawrence
There had been no welcome home for the young squire, no festivities, no deputation, not even a single flower.Only a dank ride in a motorcar up a dark, damp drive, burrowing through gloomy trees, out to the slope of the park where grey damp sheep were feeding, to the knoll where the house spread its dark brown facade.
There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun. -By Jack London: To Build a Fire
-51 words
A Setting from "He Was A Friend Of Mine" by Annie Proulx
The tea-colored river ran fast with snowmelt, a scarf of bubbles at every high rock, pools and setbacks streaming. The ochre-branched willows swayed stiffly, pollened catkins like yellow thumbprints. The horses drank and Jack dismounted,
scooped icy water up in his hand, crystalline drops falling from his fingers, his mouth and chin glistening with wet.
55 words
I like this piece of writing because the writer unfolded a beautiful picture in front of the readers. What the horses and Jack were doing maked the pictures more vivid and real.
“The tubes have been taken out, but she still had needles stuck all over her body, wires connected to the area around her heart and head, and her arms were still strapped down. She was naked, covered only by a sheet, and she felt cold, but she was determined not to complain. The small area surrounded by green curtains was filled by the bed she was lying on, the machinery of the Intensive Care Unit and a white chair on which a nurse was sitting reading a book”. Pg 18, Veronika decides to die, Paulo Coelho.
I submitted this fragment because it’s very descriptive and made me realise what the main character situation was.
A setting from A Deadly Game of Magic by Joan Lowery Nixon
The house seemed to sprawl and spread in two directions, like a V, as far as I could tell. At the far end of the living room, on my left, there was another archway, a smaller one, and I was drawn to it. It was a gate into darkness…..
I love this setting because it gives me the exact image of the hallway, especially the simile “like a V”.
“She was almost driven back by the powerful odour of elegance that assailed her once she was inside. It was compounded of perfume and fur and satins, silks and leather, jewellery and face powder. It seemed to arise from the thick grey carpets and hangings, and fill the air of the grand staircase before her.”
55 words
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” by Paul Gallico
The author used the smell of the luxury to give the reader a sense of being rich and elegant. The smell intoxicates every woman including the character, Mrs. Harris.
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