8 Smiley Face Writing Tricks

• Add Zest to Your Writing…

1. Expanded Moment

• Instead of speeding past a moment, writers often emphasize it by “expanding” the action. Don’t attempt to write about the entire ski trip. Pick just one event and describe it well.

• Example – I sat down, crossed my legs, flipped my hair away from my face, and began to write (Evan).

2. Sensory Details for Effect

• Instead of general, vague descriptions, specific sensory details help the reader visualize the person, place, thing or idea, that the writer is describing.

• Sensory Details appeal to the reader’s sense of … smell, taste, touch, sound, sight.

• See example on next slide

Example of Sensory

• The water giggled and danced down the rocks.

• Turpentine smells tinged the edge of our noses.

• Razor sharp blades of grass cut…

3. Hyphenated Modifier

• Hyphenated adjectives often cause the reader to “ sit up and take notice.”

Example • It was one of those please-don’t-make-me-go-

to-school mornings .

4. Full Circle Ending

• One effective way to wrap up a piece of writing is to repeat a phrase - perhaps with slightly different wording – from the beginning of the writing.

• Example – All the neighbors thought Aunt Matilda a little strange. They had thought so when she …. On second thought, maybe not everyone thought Aunt Matilda a little strange.

Pay Dirt

My garden is an important part of my summer. It gives me that I- need- a- break -

time. My back yard was not only a place of solace, it was a scene from believe-it or-not. The

yard and the garden are bathed in shadows. Big trees ring the fence like soldiers and often a

fox or various wildlife parades through the back bushes. Amidst this calm scene this July

something caught my eye. Slowly a gigantic owl with the wing span the size of a jet plane

swooped in. Paying no attention to me, he moved through the pine trees like an Olympic

gymnast and he clutched with his beak a transparent plastic bag. I took a double take. Yes, it

was some strange version of a glad bag, sandwich size, floating in the bird’s jaws. The bag fell

from his mouth and landed some 3 feet from me. Leaning over to reach for the fallen prey, I

found in my hand a roll of dollar bills neatly closed inside a zip lock. My garden somehow

that day had become a magic ATM machine. May be there is more to gardening than quiet

time… Maybe there is something to the term…pay dirt.

5. Magic Three

• Three groups of words, usually separated by commas, that create a poetic rhythm or add support for a point.

• Example – I love playing hide-and-seek with my friends in our woods, jumping rope on the school playground, and swinging on the old tire at Grandma’s.

6. Figurative Language• No literal comparisons add “spice” to writing and

can help paint a more vivid picture for the reader

– Simile – The gravestones are crooked, like teeth badly in need of braces.

– Metaphor - The old rat got away with it!– Hyperbole – The test has a million questions.– Personification – The trees danced in the wind.– Onomatopoeia – meow, hiss---idiom – expression not to be taken literally she has a green thumb

Example

During our hunting adventures, boring, brown sticks would become rifles, my miniature poodle would turn into a fierce hunting dog, and teeny ant hills would grow before our eyes to monstrous mounds of dirt. We would travel through the knee- high grass that tickled our legs like spiders. When there was a slight breeze, we would take cover because we believed with all our hearts that it would soon become a horrible hurricane named Hunter.

7. Repetition for Effect

• Writers often repeat specially chosen words or phrases to make a point, to stress certain ideas for the reader.

• Example- I never played Peter Pan and flew to Never- Never Land. I was never Cinderella getting ready for the Ball to dance the night away with Prince Charming. I was never Jane waiting for Tarzan in our tree house .

8. Humor

• Writers know the value of laughter, even subtle humor can turn a boring paper into one that can raise someone’s spirits.

• Example – You, yes, you Justin, were the guilty one who, while I took off my shoes to enjoy the hot pavement in early spring, put a frog in them. I didn’t look at my shoes when I put them back on. It was the squish that gave your plot away… (Elizabeth).