LC, founder of eFrog Press, hosts the Take the Leap blog and regularly blogs about all things ebook!
“I find there is nothing more beautiful, for example, than the very basic components of language, nouns and verbs.” Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog
An author I was working with recently had written an amazing story but included very little detail. I was reminded of a powerful writing exercise developed by two of the finest writing teachers I have ever known—Gary Bradshaw (1948-1994) and Frank Barone, active poet and retired teacher. Based on the 21 Senses exercises in Donald Murray’s A Writer Teaches Writing (Houghton Mifflin, 1968), writers are encouraged to generate their own topics in their own voices while producing specific, detailed, “showing” sentences and paragraphs on 21 different senses. The results are dramatic!
Bradshaw and Barone challenged their high school writing seminar students to eliminate verbs of being from their writing—almost an impossible task for some. Students were also challenged to compose 21 tightly written, “showing” paragraphs. The 21 Senses can transform your writing. So take the challenge! Here are the first five senses complete with models written by Bradshaw and Barone for their students.
