Writing Exercises 6-10

Writing Exercises 6-10

In exercises 1-5, we focused on verbs and the effect of short sentences to convey a simple, strong idea. Now we turn to nouns. Continuing our metaphor, nouns are the actors in the film, the drivers of the car.

Using Nouns as Fragmentary Sentences in Place of Short Sentences:

Although rarely seen in most prose, nouns by themselves (without verbs or predicates) may be used as fragmentary sentences for special effect. Here, the idea is to create a life from a pile, a story from stuff. If a camera panned around a person’s room, focusing only on the objects, in order to tell the viewer the story of a life, it would have a similar effect to the sentence below.

Paper; rebellion; pencil; the imaginative sketch, perspective; publication; exhibition; model; the critic; worldwide attention; lectures; the disappearance of rebellion; integration into the corporate system; publicity, books, radio, television; FAME! And thus the architect is born, and thus he lives, and thus he dies. (Ionel Schein, Arts and Architecture)

However, a much more useful strategy is to proceed deliberately from initial impressions to a coherent statement, from simple noun fragments to full sentences, thus avoiding the grocery list mentality of listing one noun after another. Think of yourself as a window decorator on 5^th Avenue with a series of objects to place in view. You must select and place the best objects to create the mood you want.

Success. Triumph. Waves of applause. The evening came to a kind of crescendo that I have since to recapture. (Shana Alexander, Life)

Of course, you can also reverse the Shana Alexander series by dropping a noun fragment into place after first having prepared its context by using a fuller statement. For instance:

"Hey, if Tyson and Spinks ever get back into the ring again, it'll be another blowout. A foregone conclusion. One round. WHAM! Tyson."

Here, the effect is of increasing certainty. Imagine a ghostly image in film become clearer and closer and more solid.

Then, too, you can reverse the Ionel Schein series by stringing nouns and noun phrases in a series after the original base clause. For example:

I am a novelist, painter, sculptor, philosopher, draughtsman, critic, politician, journalist, essayist, pamphleteer, all rolled into one, a latter-day Leonardo in my own Italian Renaissance. (Wyndham Lewis, Blasting and Bombardiering)

Such a strategy is often used for creating a concise definition.

He was a Northerner who resembled the Southerners: in his insolence, his independence, his readiness to accept a challenge, his recklessness and ineptitude in practical matters, his romantic and chivalrous view of the world in which he was living. (Edmund Wilson, Patriotic Gore)

The nouns in the example above are tucked into a prepositional phrase: in his “insolence…independence… readiness… recklessness… ineptitude… and view.”

But be especially careful! It is extremely easy to slip into jargon when you overwork noun compounds and long noun phrases. For instance:

The most promising candidates for the oscillator now include such lasers as the helium-neon gas laser, the carbon dioxide gas laser and the neodymium-doped yttrium-aluminum-garnet crystal laser. (Donald Nelson, Scientific American)

The control of these fundamental protective systems and the channeling of them into team play and individual effort that possess logic and reason acceptable to the individual's culture represent the mental hygiene of athletic endeavor. (Joseph Dolan and Lloyd Holloway, The Treatment and Prevention of Athletic Injuries)

There remain cases in which the inadequacies of a conventional orthographic record cannot be put to rights by assumptions drawn from generalizations about the language and dialect in which the poem is composed or from hypotheses about the meaning or the meter of the poem. (Rulon Wells, Essays on the Language of Literature)

Avoid this sort of writing unless it is your specific goal to work for the Department of Defense.

Exercise 6

Imitate the Ionel Schein example by writing 1 paragraph saturated with nouns used as fragmentary sentences. Bind them together with a strong summary sentence.

Exercise 7

Imitate the Shana Alexander example by writing 1 paragraph that begins with a noun fragment and then finishes with a full sentence. You should strive to create a sense of coherent progression from first impressions to final judgment.

Success. Triumph. Waves of applause. The evening came to a kind of crescendo that I have since to recapture. (Shana Alexander, Life)

Exercise 8

Imitate the structure of the Tyson-Spinks example by starting with a complete sentence and then narrowing down to a single noun used as a fragmentary sentence. Write 1 short paragraph.

"Hey, if Tyson and Spinks ever get back into the ring again, it'll be another blowout. A foregone conclusion. One round. WHAM! Tyson."

Exercise 9

Imitate the Wyndham Lewis or the Edmund Wilson example by writing 1 sentence that strings a series of nouns or noun phrases together in the form of a definition, explanation, or catalogue.

Exercise 10

Study the Nelson, Wells, Dolan and Holloway examples and then write 1 very obnoxious, heavy-handed, jargon-packed, tortuous, bloated paragraph in imitation of their efforts. Pretend that you're a Presidential spokesperson, an insurance agent, a marketing consultant, a professor of literature et cetera.

Compiled by Jesse Easley and modified by Christine Pense after Virginia Tufte’s Grammar as Style workbook.