Practice in Description: Writing Down Memories

Description is important in writing, no matter the genre or style.  You don’t want to overload your writing with it, but it is important to have.  A good way to practice that is to write down memories with as much detail as possible, maybe even add some in if you forget so that you can practice the skill of knowing what details would make the scene as realistic as possible.  Plus, it’s fun to write down your memories; who knows, you might be able to use them one day to write some kind of memoir. 

For example, I recorded all of my memories from my wonderful first nine years of school at a private school so I wouldn’t forget them.  Here is one of the scenarios from my memoir.


"One January day, Katie and Jacque devised a wonderful plan – and experiment – for music class.  Usually, the girls sat at the two middle tables, the boys at the two back tables, and no one at the front table.  So we sat down every-other seat at the two middle and two back tables and waited for the boys to come.  We predicted that all the guys would sit at the one front table.


Bronson and Ben walked in first and their faces were priceless!  They hastily left the room again.  Then Trenton walked in and his face was wide-open shock – and then he left, too.  So the boys congregated outside for a little before entering and sitting down at the front table, just as we had predicted. 


When Mrs. Landis came in, she was very surprised at the scene that greeted her – but she loved it.  She congratulated us and laughed at how squished the boys were at the front table."

So why not try writing down your memories and see where it takes you?

Use Your Dreams

Everyone dreams, and sometimes we remember them.  But what good are they?  Why not try writing them down to find out!  I often will write down my dreams when I remember them, even if they are relatively short.  Extra Challenge: Try turning those dreams into a story!

Here’s an example of a dream that I wrote down.

I was friends with a nice elderly lady with a HUGE house.  There were all sorts of kids who loved her and teens who loved her…and those who hated her.  But when I first got to know her, I only heard brief stories about the evil things the evil people had done, like stealing things, threatening her, etc.  And we could go all over the house, which was humongous – staircases and secret passageways everywhere. 

               

Until the one day.  We moved to the downstairs and when we heard footsteps, we knew the evil people were upstairs.  Only, some little kids came down, very noisily, to say hello to their grandma.  We followed them out (going upstairs) with a large wooden 2 by 4, ready to conk anyone evil we found.  We saw only kids as the last one left…and turned around to see a large man.  (By the way, ‘we’ is me and another girl) We hit him, but our wood broke.  She was captured and taken to a room, and I was taken by the leader, the evilest lady, who was really a queen – in queen attire.  I was tied up by Jacob, who used to go to Hinkletown Mennonite School [the private school I used to attend].  I saw four others who used to, also – Ethan, Eric, Bryce, and Brandon.  In the midst of being tied up (rather gently, I thought, and was hoping Jacob could be swayed) I yelled, “Five of you used to go to HMS!  What happened to loving one another?”  The queen got angry at me and her eyes glinted of evil as she told Jacob which room to take me to. 

He dumped me into a room and commanded that I face a certain direction.  I had no idea why, but then I saw that I could see through holes in the wall that direction.  I was thankful once again to Jacob as I saw – either him or Eric, I’m not sure which – demonstrating to the queen how to use a certain weapon/form of torture.  So I figured out what I could do.

I heard the queen say with an evil laugh, “I will be the first to question the prisoner.”  She opened the door and came in, pointing her weapon at me and shoving it at me.  I wrested it from her grasp and turned it around to point at her and put it against her.  Her eyes grew wide and frantically she pulled out another one and shoved it at me again, but hers was not directly on me as mine was on her.  I felt a slight tingling in my hand that kept getting worse when her weapon touched me, but I could tell her tingle must be worse because she was writhing and then slowly stilled until her eyes were wide open and she just lay there, paralyzed.  The only problem was, it was only temporary, and I had no idea how long it would last.  So I escaped out one of the two doors in the room and headed over to save the girl that was captured as well – I think her name was Elisa, maybe?  So I awakened her and we escaped downstairs, running – no, flying – down the staircases that led to where we would be welcomed.  We got to the bottom, gasping and out of breath as well as being scared to death at almost being killed – because they would have killed us, eventually.  They asked us what happened, so we explained. 

But Jacob and the queen were searching for us.  So we traveled constantly through all the secret staircases and passageways, spying on them and making sure they didn’t see us.  We were doing well until the one day, and they crashed through the passageway after us, with their army of evil behind them.  We dashed out the window, and suddenly we were real people and the dollhouse was the house that we had been running in, but only I was left as a real human – and an army of huge, mad-looking ants crawled out the house after us.  I ran to the bathroom (It was all in my house) and the ants followed.  There I met Hira and Mr. Horning, and as the ants crawled into the sink, we flushed them down as fast as we could with water.  Mr. Horning gave us a funny look and then said, “Well, I guess you are eighth graders, so you can do what you want.”  Finally the last of the evil was down the drain. 

And one of my favorites:

I and a friend were helping with kids at a school.  All the green-eyed kids would have healthy, long lives.  But all the blue-eyed kids could drop dead any time. We had to help check out all the brown-eyed kids, because they could be either one.  Most of them, though, were liked the green-eyed – only a few were like the blue-eyed.  But there was a little boy, and my friend and I were trying to figure out how to tell the kid in a good way that he was like the blue-eyed, that he could live for another second to 100 years. 

Both I dreamt this year.  So write down your dreams and have fun laughing at them or using them in your writing!  

Local Color

“Local Color” is a term I learned in 8^th grade while reading “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain.  He made his characters speak like they were African-American or like they were real southerners or drunkards.  He wrote how they spoke – and that’s what Local Color is.  It’s writing in the dialect and jargon of a certain type of people or place.  You can have any kind.  Like for instance, in Lancaster County, you could do the local color of Pennsylvania Dutch.  You could do pirate talk, or an accent from another country.  You could write like it’s a computer geek talking or Western style.  There are many options, two of which I give an example of below.

SCOTTISH:

“Look, Lindsay, th’ sheep got oot!” gasped Mairi, her eyes widenin’ at th’ sight o’ Akir MacNeil’s sheep runnin’ loose through th’ streets, who must hae escaped from their pen as MacNeil let them oot tae take them up th’ ben for grazin’.  They ran all aboot, thes way an’ ’at, comin’ closer an’ closer tae whaur we sat. 

                Flora screamed as a sheep began tae nibble at her frock buttons.  Ah began tae laugh as Iain was also harassed by th’ poor hungry sheep.  Iain an’ Flora glowered at me, no happy aboot bein’ laughed at, an’ MacNeil roonded his hungry sheep up an’ herded them up tae their grazin’ spot on th’ ben.

                Flora glared at th’ sheep as they walked off.  Ah smiled as Ah thought aboot th’ sheep ’at had a belly full o’ buttons an’ Flora’s torn frock. 

TRANSLATION:

                “Look, Lindsay, the sheep got out!” gasped Mairi, her eyes widening at the sight of Akir MacNeil’s sheep running loose through the streets, who must have escaped from their pen as MacNeil let them out to take then up the mountain for grazing.  They ran all about, this way and that, coming closer and closer to where we sat.

                Flora screamed as a sheep began to nibble at the dress buttons.  I began to laugh as Iain was also harassed by the poor hungry sheep.  Iain and Flora glowered at me, not happy about being laughed at, and MacNeil rounded his hungry sheep up and herded them up to their grazing spot on the mountain. 

                Flora glared at the sheep as they walked off.  I smiled as I thought about the sheep that had a belly full of buttons and Flora’s torn frock.

GANGSTER:

                “Jay, do they have guns?” I whispered.  He shrugged.  Black-man laughed. 

                “Naw, we don’t throw lead; we’re more partial to shivs.”  Black-man whipped out something shiny from his pocket with a zing.  My eyes froze on what he held.

                “A switchblade!” Jay exclaimed.  He shoved me further behind him. 

                Black-man laughed some more.  “What are you, the weak sister?” he smirked at me.  “Where do you think the name of the eatin’ place came from?”

                “A chain restaurant based on gangsters?” Jay asked.

                “Naw, The Switch is only a hash house.  The real stuff’s near our part of town.  Care to visit?”

                “No…not – not really,” I answered, stepping back into my place beside Jay.

                “Actually, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

                “Oh, so now the two rubes are gonna grill us?” Black-man and his cronies laughed.  I really hated their laugh.  “Fine.  Ask away.”

                “Where are we?”

                “Read the signs, kid.  Point Pleasant, Gapico.  Welcome to your very first nightmare.”

                “Are we really in a video game?”

                “You better believe it, kid.  And you gotta get out alive or you’re not going home again.  Get my drift?  You gotta beat all the wrong numbers in Gapico or you’re gonna get knocked off.  And guess who you gotta beat first?  Me, the one who just showed the blade – Charlie Black.”  The evil grin expanded on his face.  “And we got our guns all over the place.  Hoodlums, that is, to you.  Boy, will you be duck soup.”

                “What is it we have to do?” Jay’s face was tense and I was beginning to feel a bit like they were tightening the screws, to use their lingo.

                “On this level?  You gotta get the map from us.  In our part of town.  And if you two dudes are wise heads, you’ll get that map before you both end up stiffs in a wooden kimono.  And yeah, that means what you think it does.”            

I’m sure you got the drift of all that, right?  But they are both fine examples of local color.  Why don’t you try writing a story in local color and see how it goes?