Word Painting Tool Kit

1. Word Painting Tool Kit How to show and not tell! 

2. Painting with Participles • Add verbs with ingendings to the beginning or the end of a sentence • Take the following sentence: “The diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey.” • Now add the following participles to the beginning of the sentence: “Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey.” • Add participial phrases to your sentences: “Hissing their forked red tongues and coiling their cold bodies, the diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey.”

3. Now you try • Write down a sentence about your watermark event. • Add two or three participles • Create a participle phrase • Additional example: “Flying through the air on the wings of a dream, the Olympic long jumper thrust the weight of his whole body forward” (Cathleen Conry).

4. Painting with Absolutes • Add a two-word combination containing a noun and a verb with an ing or ed ending to a sentence. • Take the following sentence: “The cat climbed the tree.” • Now add the following absolutes to the beginning of the sentence: “Claws digging, feet kicking, the cat climbed the tree.” • Add absolute phrases to your sentences: “Feet trembling on the snow-covered rocks, the mountain climber edged along the cliff.” • Additional example: “I glanced at my clock, digits glowing floresecent blue in the inky darkness of my room” (Jenn Coppolo).

5. Your turn! • Either create a new sentence about your watermark experience, or use the previous sentence. • Now try inserting a couple of absolutes… • Then make an absolute phrase from your absolute.

6. Painting with Appositives • Add a noun that adds a second image to a preceding noun. • Take the following sentence: “The raccoon enjoys eating turtle eggs.” • Now add the following appositive to the sentence: “The raccoon, a scavenger, enjoys eating turtle eggs.” • Add appositive phrases to your sentences: “The raccoon, a midnight scavenger who roams lake shorelines in search of food, enjoys eating turtle eggs.” • Additional example: “The volcano, a ravenous God of fire, spewed forth lava and ash across the mountain” (Ben Quagliata).

7. Your turn • This time, turn to the person next to you and look at one of their sentences. • Help “paint their sentence” by using appositives.

8. Painting with Adjectives Shifted out of Order • Add adjectives out of order. • Take the following sentence: “The large, red-eyed, angry bull moose charged the intruder.” • Now move adjectives out of order: “The large bull moose, red-eyed and angry, charged the intruder.” • Additional example: “The boxer, twisted and tormented, felt no compassion for his contender” (Chris Hloros).

9. Create a sentence about your watermark that has adjectives. • Now take the adjectives and move them around. • Can you be more descriptive?

10. Painting with Action Verbs • Replace being verbs with action verbs. • Here is an example of a sentence with a being verb: “The gravel road was on the left side of the barn.” • Here is the same sentence with an action verb: “The gravel road curled around the left side of the barn.”

11. Last one! • Now you write a sentence using “to be”. (Or take one that you have already written) • Change the “be” with an action verb