Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively

by Rebecca Mcclanahan

Overview

Let Rebecca McClanahan guide you through an inspiring examination of description in its many forms. With her thoughtful instruction and engaging exercises, you'll learn to develop your senses and powers of observation to uncover the rich, evocative words that accurately portray your mind's images. McClanahan includes dozens of descriptive passages written by master poets and authors to illuminate the process. She also teaches you how to weave writing together using description as a unifying thread.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781599634517
Publisher:	F+W Media
Publication date:	03/15/1999
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	250
File size:	440 KB

About the Author

Rebecca McClanahan's tenth book, The Tribal Knot, a multi-generational memoir, is forthcoming from Indiana University Press in 2013. Other books include The Riddle Song and Other Rememberings, winner of the Glasgow Prize in nonfiction, and Deep Light: New and Selected Poems. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays, Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize anthology, The Kenyon Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Sun, and numerous anthologies. Recipient of a Pushcart Prize in fiction and the Wood Prize from Poetry, McClanahan teaches in the MFA programs of Queens University and Rainier Writing Workshop.

Please visit her website at www.mcclanmuse.com

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
1	What Is Description?	4
2	The Eye of the Beholder	13
3	From Eye to Word: The Description	36
4	The Nose and Mouth and Hand and Ear of the Beholder	62
5	Figuratively Speaking: A "Perception of Resemblances"	86
6	Bringing Characters to Life Through Description	114
7	The Eye of the Teller: How Point of View Affects Description	137
8	The Story Takes Its Place: Descriptions of Setting	171
9	Plot and Pace: How Description Shapes the Narrative Line	194
10	The Big Picture	216
	End Notes, Toward A Beginning	240
	About the Author	242
	Selected Bibliography	243
	Index	246

Editorial Reviews

Author, poet, and teacher McClanahan combines direct instruction with exercises for sharpening sensory perceptions, describing characters and bringing them to life, establishing point of view, developing a setting, and shaping plot and pace with description. As examples, she uses passages from such classic and contemporary masters as Gustave Flaubert, Virginia Woolf, Truman Capote, and Toni Morrison. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

Booknews