To Inspire you, Read Writings by the Masters

There is no doubt that your writing will improve each time you write―but if and only if, you continue to learn. Reading good writing is essential to achieve this goal since we can learn much from those who have become successful authors and poets. By reading their selected works, you will see that they have mastered the art of storytelling through the use of strong, visual words providing excellent pacing and a sense of drama.

As you read the text and lines of poetry included, note the tone of the writing, the voice, and most important, the excellent use of grammar and punctuation. I often suggest in our “How To Become A Published Author or Poet: A to Z” seminars that writers read good writing before they begin to write. Through osmosis, the good writing creeps into the writer’s brain and provides inspiration and ideas that improve the text whether it is fiction, non-fiction, or poetry.

By presenting a wide variety of writing, I trust you will discover authors and poets who write in the genre you have chosen for your work. There is also a reading list provided after the excerpts to guide you to additional books that are excellent resources.

When you read the following text, you will note that many of the published writers have broken rules suggested in this book. Many times their having done so is based on the style of the writer, but be careful not to emulate the mistakes made. Style is one thing, but persistent use of bad grammar and punctuation is a death knell for aspiring authors and poets. Learn from the good writing and avoid the bad.

Fiction

Anthony Burgess

A Clockwork Orange

The chelloveck sitting next to me, there being this long big plushy seat that ran round three walls, was well away with his glazzies glazed and sort of burbling slovos like ‘Aristotle wishy washy works outing cyclamen get forfiulate smartish.’ He was in the land all right, well away, in orbit, and I knew what it was like, having tried it like everybody else had done, but at this time I’d got to thinking it was a cowardly sort of a veshch, O my brothers. You’d lay there after you’d drunk the old moloko and then you got the messel that everything all round you was sort of in the past. You could viddy it all right, all of it, very clear – tables, the stereo, the lights, the sharps and the malchicks – but it was like some veshch that used to be there but was not there not no more. And you were sort of hypnotized by your boot or shoe or a finger-nail as it might be, and at the same time you were sort of picked up by the old scruff and shook like it might be a cat. You got shook and shook till there was nothing left.

Note: This example has a completely new language integrated into the text with English. Nadsat is a Russian-based language Burgess created for the text and replaces words like “man” with “chelloveck” and so forth. This is a great example of Burgess’s mastery of the English language and his ability to manipulate it.

Mary Higgins Clark

Daddy’s Little Girl

“Have you had any response to that sign you carried outside Sing Sing?”

“As a matter of fact, I have,” I said, giving him what Peter Lawlor calls my mysterious self-satisfied smile.

He frowned. I had piqued his curiosity, which is exactly what I wanted to do.

“It’s all over town that you had some pretty nasty things to say to Rob Westerfield at the Parkinson Inn today.”

“There’s no law against being honest and there’s certainly not one that says you have to make nice with murderers.”

The Second Time Around

“When I met Dr. Kendall last week, I had thought of her as not being particularly attractive, but now when she looked directly at me, I realized that there was a compelling, almost smoldering fire that had not then been apparent to me. I had noticed her determined chin, but her dark blunt-cut hair had been tucked between her ears, and I had not taken in the curious shade of her grayish green eyes.”

Note: Clark’s books feature terrific dialogue through character interaction. We learn about them through what they say instead of excessive description.

Sue Grafton

M Is For Malice

“The run itself was unsatisfactory. The dawn was overcast, the sky a brooding gray unrelieved by any visible sunrise. Gradually, daylight overtook the lowering dark, but the whole lot of it had the bleached look of an old black-and-white photograph.”

Note: Word usage sets the mood, gives readers a sense of what the scene looks like.

John Grisham

The Firm

“They left Chickasaw Gardens and drove west with the traffic toward downtown, into the fading sun. They held hands, but said little. Mitch opened the sun roof and rolled down the windows. Abby picked through a box of old cassettes and found Springsteen. The stereo worked fine. ‘Hungry Heart’ blew from the windows as the little shiny roadster made its way toward the river.”

“The warm sticky, humid Memphis summer air settled in with the dark. Softball fields came to life as teams of fat men with tight polyester pants and lime-green and fluorescent –shirts laid chalk lines and prepared to do battle. Cars full of teenagers crowded into fast food joints to drink beer and gossip and check out the opposite sex.”

Note: Grisham’s writing style provides the essentials to push the story Forward. He is criticized for not providing detail and depth, but this best-selling author knows modern-day readers don’t want to be bogged down with needless facts.

Graham Greene

The Ministry of Fear

“There are dreams which belong only partly to the unconscious; these are the dreams we remember on waking so vividly that we deliberately continue them, and so fall asleep again and wake and sleep and then dream goes on without interruption, with a thread of logic the pure dream doesn’t possess.

Rowe was exhausted and frightened; he had made tracks half across London while the nightly raid got under way. It was an empty London with only occasional bursts of noise and activity. An umbrella shop was burning at the corner of Oxford Street; in Wardour Street he walked through a cloud of grit: a man with a grey dusty face leant against a wall and laughed and a warden said sharply, ‘That’s enough now. It’s nothing to laugh about.’ None of these things mattered. They were like something written; they didn’t belong to his own life and he paid them no attention. But he had to find a bed, and so somewhere south of the river he obeyed Hilfe’s advice and at last went underground.”

Note: Watch the pacing, how Greene moves the story along with nary a word wasted.

Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea

“He could not see the green of the shore now but only the tops of the blue hills that showed white as though they were snow-capped and the clouds that looked like high snow mountains above them. The sea was very dark and the light made prisms in the water. The myriad flecks of the plankton were annulled now by the high sun and it was only the great deep prisms in the blue water that the old man saw now with his lines going straight down into the water that was a mile deep.”

Note: good example of visual writing – notice how Hemingway makes readers feel like they are right in the boat with the fisherman.

A Moveable Feast

“Sylvia had a lively, sharply sculptured face, brown eyes that were as alive as small animals and as gay as a young girl’s, and wavy brown hair that was brushed back from her fine forehead and cut thick below her ears and at the line of the collar of the brown velvet jacket she wore. She had pretty legs and she was kind, cheerful and interested, and loved to make jokes and gossip. No one that I ever knew was nicer to me.”

Note: Hemingway breaks the rules with a run-on sentence, but his description is powerful. Use of “that” in the final sentence could be avoided.

Greg Isles

Sleep No More

“Looking up, he saw Eve Sumner standing at the top of the stairs. Gone were the navy skirt suit and heels. She wore a bright yellow sundress that looked like something a St. Croix islander might wear. Her feet were bare, and her hair was tied back with a ruby scarf, exposing her fine neck.”

“His arms and legs felt shaky, as thought he couldn’t trust them. Memories of his last hour with Eve flashed through his mind like flares in the darkness, blanking out his thoughts. She came to him, like quick cuts in a film.”

Note: Good use of metaphor in the final sentence provides clear picture of action. Notice correct punctuation usage with dialogue, especially positioning of period inside quotation marks.

James Joyce

The Portrait of an Artist As A Young Man

“O how cold and strange it was to think of that! All the dark was cold and strange. There were pale strange faces there, great eyes like carriage lamps. They were the ghosts of murderers, the figures of marshals who had received their death wounds on battlefields far away over the sea. What did they wish to say that their faces were so strange?”

The Dead from The Dubliners

“An old man was dozing in a great hooded chair in the hall. He lit a candle in the office and went before them to the stairs. They followed him in silence, their feet falling in soft thuds on the thickly carpeted stairs. She mounted the stairs behind the porter, her head bowed in the ascent, her frail shoulders curved with a burden, her skirt girt tightly about her.”

Note: Joyce was the master of description. Note the use of adjectives has a nice balance to it. The phrase “her frail shoulders curved with a burden” nails the appearance of the character.

Jack Kerouac

On the Road

“Everybody was rocking and roaring. Galatea and Marie with beers in their hands were standing on their chairs, shaking and jumping. Groups of colored guys stumbled in from the street, falling over one another to get there. ‘Stay with it, man!’ roared a man with a foghorn voice, and he let out a big groan that must have been heard clear out in Sacramento, ah’haa!”

“We drove on. Across the immense plain of night lay the first Texas town, Dalhart, which I’d crossed in 1947. It lay glimmering on the dark floor of the earth, fifty miles away. The land by moonlight was all mesquite and wastes. On the horizon was the moon. She fattened, she grew huge and rusty, she mellowed and rolled, till the morning star contended and dews began to blow in our winds – and we rolled.”

Note: Kerouac’s writing makes readers feel like they are in the car with him as he travels across America. Note the terrific description of the moon.

Harper Lee

To Kill A Mockingbird

“Scout,” said Atticus, “nigger-lover is just one of those terms that don’t mean anything – like snot-nose. It’s hard to explain – ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody’s favoring Negroes over and above themselves. It’s slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody.”

Note: Lee’s vivid language is powerful and drives his story. Clarity is apparent, Lee never minced words.

Jack London

Call of the Wild

“It was only an old and battered harmonica, tenderly treasured and patiently repaired; but it was the best that money could buy, and out of its silver reeds he drew weird, vagrant airs which men had never heard before. Then the dog, dumb of throat, with teeth tight-clenched, would back away, inch by inch, to the farthest cabin corner.”

Note: London’s writing makes the reader almost hear the tone of the harmonica being played. And see the dog retreat to a corner in protest.

Terry McMillan

How Stella Got Her Groove Back

“I try my damnedest to wipe the smirk off my face and say, ‘Nothing. And your check’s on the kitchen counter. Go get it.”

“You didn’t go down there and fall in love with a twenty-one-year old, did you Stella?”

“Are you crazy?”

“No. I’m not crazy. Are you? And she is staring at me like she hasn’t seen me in twenty years or like I’ve just cut off all my hair or dyed it some outrageous color and she is giving me a serious make-over. “Something is different about you Stella, and Ima tell you something. You look better now than I’ve seen you look in a long time. I’m not kidding, you actually have like a twinkle or something in your damn eye.”

Note: Excitement prevails through word usage and the tone of the writing. The story being conveyed is topped off with the descriptive words “you actually have a twinkle or something in your damn eye.”

Larry McMurtry

Dead Man’s Walk

“We could run for them hills – shoot our way through,” he said. “I doubt that five or six of us would make it. We’d give the man scrap, at least, if we did that.”

“Not a one of us would make it,” Bigfoot said. “Of course, they might spare Matilda.”

“I don’t want to be spared if Shad ain’t,” Matilda said.

“You’re a big target, Matty,” Bigfoot observed in a kindly tone. “They might shoot you before they even realized you were female.”

Note: Good example of exciting dialogue between characters. Crisp language brings the story alive.

Herman Melville

Moby Dick

“In the midst of the consternation, Queerqueg dropped deftly to his knees and crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from side to side with a long living arc of a leap.”

Note: Melville’s text produces a film-like image for readers as to what is occurring on the ship. We can almost hear the waves splashing, threatening the ship’s very being.

Jacquelyn Mitchard

The Deep End of the Ocean

“But Candy knew, as everyone knew, as Beth knew, that the whole legal process would turn out to be mostly theater, an elaborate pantomime intended for no purpose but competition, like binding up the newspaper corner to corner, with twine and setting them at the curb. All the hearing would accomplish, Candy predicted, would be to provide a public witnessing of tying that knot, securing it, snipping the cord.”

Note: Use of the metaphor is effective, but not overdone. Readers understand the message, the clear meaning of the author’s words.

Margaret Mitchell

Gone With The Wind

“Scarlett, Melanie, and Ms. Pittypat sat in front of the Daily Examiner office in the carriage with the top back, sheltered beneath their parasols. Scarlett’s hands shook so that her parasol wobbled above her head. Pitty was so excited her nose quivered in her round face like a rabbits, but Melanie sat as though carved of stone, her dark eyes growing darker and darker as time went by.”

Note: The use of the metaphor describing the nose quivering is effective. Great example of “showing” readers what is occurring instead of “telling” them.

James A. Michener

Centennial

“They form a strange pair, this short, stocky Frenchman and this slim red-bearded Scot. Each taciturn when on the prairie, neither pried into the affairs of the other. Without commenting on the fact, McKeag had now heard Pasquinel tell others that his wife was in Montreal, Detroit, and New Orleans, and he began to suspect there was none.”

Note: The writing provides good character description and a sense of drama. This paragraph has a complete beginning, middle, and end.

Joyce Carol Oates

We Were The Mulvaneys

“There was the Mulvaney cork bulletin board on the wall. Festooned with color snapshots, clippings, blue and red ribbons, Dad’s Chamber of Commerce ‘medal,’ dried wallflowers, gorgeous seed-catalog pictures of tomatoes, snapdragons, columbine. Beneath what were visible were more items, and beneath those probably more. Like archeological strata. A recent history of the Mulvaneys.”

Note: visual words are used to set a scene. The bulletin board comes alive. Use of the verb “Festooned” is original and clever.

George Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and London

“My hotel was called the Hotel des Trois Moineaux. It was a dark, rickety warren of five stories, cut up by wooden partitions into forty rooms. The rooms were small and inveterately dirty, for there was no maid, and Madame F., the patronne, had no time to do any sweeping. The walls were as thin as matchwood, and to hide the cracks they had been covered with layer after layer of pink paper, which had come loose and housed innumerable bugs. Near the ceiling long lines of bugs marched all day like columns of soldiers . . .”

“Charlie was a youth of family and education, who had run away from home and lived on occasional remittances. Picture him very pink and young, with the fresh cheeks and soft brown hair of a nice little boy, and lips excessively red and wet, like cherries. His feet are tiny, his arms abnormally short, his hands dimpled like a baby’s. He has a way of dancing and capering while he talks, as though he were too happy and too full of life to keep still for an instant.”

“The room had a dirty, mixed smell of food and sweat. Everywhere in the cupboards, behind the piles of crockery, were squalid stores of food that the waiters had stolen. There were only two sinks, and no washing basin, and it was nothing unusual for a waiter to wash his face in the water in which clean crockery was rinsing. But the customers saw nothing of this. There were a coco-nut mat and a mirror outside the dining room door, and the waiters used to preen themselves up and go in looking the picture of cleanliness.”

Note: Orwell uses visual words to captivate readers into the story. Notice how he uses the five senses to bring the characters alive. Readers find themselves drawn in with the story, thinking “I’m glad I never ate at this restaurant.”

James Patterson

Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas

“They went to bed for the first time on that rainy night, and he made her notice the music of the raindrops as they fell on her street, the rooftop, and even the trees outside her apartment. It was beautiful, it was music, but soon they had forgotten the patter of the rain, and everything else, except for the urgent touch of each other.”

Note: A simple, touching use of words to describe passion. Instead of flinging body parts around and providing heavy breathing, the author presents us with a touching portrayal of two people who are in love.

Anna Quindlen

Blessings

“Mount Mason had seemed dusty, too dusty, and out of date, aging the way that the cheap houses around the industrial park did, peeling, cracked, disintegrating, instead of mellowing. So many of her landmarks had gone, the old limestone bank building chopped up into a travel agency, a beauty parlor, a used bookstore, the boxy brick hardware store refaced with some horrid imitation stone and made into a place that sold records.”

Note: The author uses effective, visual words to describe a slice of history. The use of “some horrid imitation stone” is the perfect way for the author to make a point.

Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged

“She glanced at him with the faint suggestion of a smile, thinking of how often she had said these words to him and of the desperate bravery with which he was now trying to tell her: Don’t worry. He caught her glance, he understood, and the answering hint of his smile had a touch of embarrassing apology.”

Note: The author uses a minimum of words to describe the emotion present between the characters. Other authors might need several paragraphs to give us the tone of the moment, but Rand ties it up with key words that leave no doubt as to what is occurring.

Anne Rice

Interview With The Vampire

“I held fast to Claudia, ready in an instant to shove her behind me, to step forward to meet him. But then I saw with astonishment that his eyes did not see me as I saw him and he was trudging under the weight of the body he carried toward the monastery door. The moon fell now on his bowed head, on a mass of black wavy hair that touched his bent shoulder, on the full black sleeve of his coat.”

Note: Terrific description provides exactly what readers need to know about what the character feels while approaching the man. “The moon fell now on his bowed head” provides an effective description.

Tom Robbins

Villa Incognito

“Sure, as catalogued earlier, he had his charm and wiles, attractions that survived the metamorphosis from beast to man, and there were high-bred city women for whom his backwards manners were actually a kind of turn-on, a thrilling intrusion of the rustic over the overly refined.”

“Let me pour you some bubbly, baby. I want to hear your news on America. Obviously, the ol’ homeland is still hiding behind its mask of lipstick democracy and mascara faith, but what bouncy enterprising weirdness is leaking out around the edges of its disguises? That’s the real America. That’s what defines its existence.”

Note: Robbins’ language is rich with meaning. Notice how he makes his point regarding feelings about America.

Salman Rushdie

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

“As Haroun passed through the huge doors of P2C2E House, his heart sank. He stood in the vast, echoing entrance hall as white-coated Eggheads walked rapidly past him in every direction. Haroun fancied that they all eyed him with a mixture of anger, contempt, and pity. He had to ask three Eggheads the way to the Walrus’s office before he finally found it, after many mazy wanderings around P2C2E House that reminded him of following Blabbermouth around the palace. At last, however, he was standing in front of a golden door on which were written the words: GRAND COMPTROLLER OF PROCESSES TOO COMPLICATED TO EXPLAIN. I.M.D. WALRUS, ESQUIRE. KNOCK AND WAIT.”

Note: Terrific description; great name selection. Readers can imagine themselves right into the thick of this story.

J. D. Salinger

The Catcher In The Rye

“It wasn’t snowing out any more, but every once in a while you could hear a car somewhere not being able to get started. You could also hear old Ackley snoring. Right through the goddam shower curtains you could hear him. He had sinus trouble and he couldn’t breathe too hot when he was asleep. That guy had just about everything – sinus trouble, pimples, lousy teeth, halitosis, crummy fingernails. You have to feel a little sorry for the crazy sunuvabitch”

Note: Salinger sets the stage for our sense of hearing with perfect language. The descriptions of Ackley make readers feel like they know him.

Dai Sijie

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress

“The branches whistled through the air as they swung, one after another. The blows left livid weals on Luo’s flesh but my friend underwent the flogging impassively. Although he was conscious, it was as though he were in a dream where it was all happening to someone else. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I was very anxious, and the remark he had made in the mine shaft a few weeks before came back to me, reverberating in the cruel whoosh of the branches; ‘I’ve had this idea stuck in my head; that I’m going to die in this mine.’”

“The room served as shop, workplace and dining room all at once. The floorboards were grimy and streaked with yellow-and-black gobs of dried spittle left by clients. You could tell they were not washed down daily. There were hangers with finished garments suspended on a string across the middle of the room. The corners were piled high with bolts of material and folded clothes, which were under siege from an army of ants.”

Note: Sijie’s locations come alive through strong images. Readers are transported into the room where the seamstress works. Use of “under siege from an army of ants” is superb word usage.

John Steinbeck

In Dubious Battle

“Look, Jim, I want to give you a picture of what it’s like to be a Party member. You’ll get a chance to vote on every decision, but once the vote’s in, you’ll have to obey. When we have money we try to give field workers twenty dollars a month to eat on. I don’t remember a time when we ever had the money. Now listen to the work: In the field you’ll have to work alongside the men, and you’ll have to do the Party work after that, sometimes sixteen, eighteen hours a day. You’ll have to get your food where you can. Do you think you could do that?”

“Yes.”

Nilson touched the desk here and there with his fingertips. “Even the people you’re trying to help will hate you most of the time. Do you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Well, why do you want to join, then?”

Jim’s grey eyes half closed in perplexity. At last he said, “In the jail there were some Party men. They talked to me. Everything’s been a mess, all my life. Their lives weren’t messes. They were working toward something. I want to work toward something. I feel dead. I thought I might get alive again.”

Of Mice and Men

“It was Sunday afternoon. The resting horses nibbled the remaining wisps of hay, and they stamped their feet and they bit the wood of the mangers and rattled the halter chains. The afternoon sun sliced in through the cracks of the barn walls and lay in bright lines on the hay. There was the buzz of flies in the air, the lazy afternoon humming.”

Tortilla Flat

“When the beans are ripe, the little bushes are pulled and gathered into piles, to dry crisp for the threshers. Then is the time to pray that the rain may hold off. When the little piles of beans lie in lines, yellow against the dark fields, you will see the farmers watching the sky, scowling with dread at every cloud that sails over; for if a rain comes, the bean piles must be turned over to dry again.”

Note: Steinbeck is the master of storytelling. Watch the pacing of the writing, the drama, how the author provides visual images certain to keep the reader’s attention. Use of verbs such as “nibbled,” “stamped,” and “rattled” bring the text alive.

Hunter S. Thompson

Kingdom of Fear

“So the following night I took the little auto that I’d bought with me to Rio, a cheap automatic. I carried it all over South America, usually loaded. Why carry one that’s not? I tied it around my neck with a string―it was too hot to carry anywhere else.”

“A shudder ran through me, but I gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead, ignoring this sudden horrible freak show in my car. I lit a cigarette, but I was not calm. Sounds of sobbing and the ripping of cloth came from the backseat. The man they called Judge had straightened himself out and was now resting easily in the front seat, letting out long breaths of air . . .”

Note: Thompson’s flair for the dramatic is his trademark, but his word usage is captivating. The use of “sudden horrible freak show in my car” provides exactly the image he seeks.

Scott Turow

Presumed Innocent

“Carolyn, for her part, was chilling in her command. The weekend after our initial night together, I spent hours – dazed, unrooted hours – pondering our next encounter. I had no idea what was to follow. At the door to her apartment, she had kissed my hand and said simply, ‘See you.’ For me, there was no thought of resistance. I would take whatever was allowed.”

“Around the office, Tommy Molto was nicknamed the Mad Monk. He is a former seminarian; five feet six inches if he is lucky, forty or fifty pounds overweight, badly pockmarked, nails bitten to the quick. A driven personality. The kind to stay up all night working on a brief, to take three months without taking off a weekend. A capable attorney, but he is burdened by a zealot’s poverty of judgment.”

Note: Turow is quite apt at naming characters, and describing them so readers can visualize their look, characteristics, and outlook on life. Use of “burdened by a zealot’s poverty of judgment” provides a character portrayal essential to the story being told.

Virginia Woolf

Mrs. Dalloway

“You served with great distinction in the War?”

The patient repeated the word “war” interrogatively.

He was attaching meanings to words of a symbolical kind. A serious symptom, to be noted on the card.

“The War?” the patient asked. The European War—that little shindy of schoolboys and gunpowder? Had he served with distinction? He really forgot. In the War itself he had failed.

“Yes, he served with the greatest distinction,” Rezia assured the doctor; “he was promoted.”

“And they have the very highest opinion of you at your office?” Sir William murmured, glancing at Mr. Brewer’s very generously worded letter. “So that you have nothing to worry you, no financial anxiety, nothing?”

He had committed an appalling crime and been condemned to death by human nature.

“I have-I have,” he began, “committed a crime-”

“He has done nothing wrong whatever,” Rezia assured the doctor. If Mr. Smith would wait, said Sir William, he would speak to Mrs. Smith in the next room. Her husband was very seriously ill, Sir William said. Did he threaten to kill himself?

Note: Compelling dialogue, terrific word usage. Note the correct use of punctuation with the dialogue.

________________________________

Non-Fiction

H. W. Brands

The First American – The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“[Franklin] made numerous observations of the finned fish of the Atlantic. Most striking were the flying fish and the dolphins (the gilled kind, not the mammals). The reason the flying fish took to the air was to escape the dolphins, which raced beneath them, ready to gobble them up as soon as they touched down. Franklin confirmed this by noting that whenever dolphins were caught by persons on the ship – they invariably had flying fish in their bellies.”

Note: Good sentence structure. Notice that this paragraph is complete – good beginning, middle, and end.

Richard Ben Cramer

Joe DiMaggio

“It would not be a happy summer for either of the Yankees’ big stories. Mantle got to the grand Bronx ball yard, took a look at the towering tiers of seats, the monuments to Huggins, Gehrig, Ruth, in the vastness of center field, the pennants and World Series flags fluttering in rows atop the scalloped balustrade . . . and he stopped hitting atomic home runs. In fact, he was trying so hard to crush the ball, to be the miracle advertised, to hit as he believed a New York Yankee must hit (harder, surely, than he’d ever hit) . . . he couldn’t hit a thing.”

Note: Good description of Yankee Stadium – readers feel like they are right there with DiMaggio and experiencing his emotions.

Laura Hillenbrand

Seabiscuit

“Even the jaded horsemen would take a respite from their labors to see [Seabiscuit], eating their breakfasts outdoors on the benches near the siding. To joyful applause and popping flashbulbs, the horse would draw up in his railcar. He would step from his three-foot deep bed of straw, give Smith an affectionate bump with his nose and leave the train bucking.”

“Spectators murmured among themselves at Smith’s homemade bell. They watched quizzically as Smith lined up his horse, stepped behind him, and hit the bell, sending Seabiscuit into a rock start. Woolf hustled him deftly; having begun his career booting horses through walk-up match races in Indian country, he knew how to hit the gas on a horse.”

Note – The author uses terrific language to show what is occurring instead of telling us what is happening. Show and don’t tell to make your writing more effective.

Barbara Kingsolver

Seeing Scarlet

“Then a bend in the road revealed a tiny adobe school, its bare dirt yard buzzing with activity. The Escuela del Sol Feliz took us by surprise in such a remote place, though in Costa Rica, where children matter more than the army, the sturdiest shoes are made in small sizes, and every tiny hamlet has at least a one-room school. This one had turned its charges outdoors for the day in their white and navy uniforms so the schoolyard seemed to wave with nautical flags.”

Note: Good word usage provides excellent descriptions. Note the strong adjectives used to add zest to the story.

Jon Meacham

Franklin and Winston

“To meet Roosevelt the president, ‘with all his buoyant sparkle, his iridescence,’ Churchill once said, was like ‘opening a bottle of champagne.’”

Note: terrific use of the language to pinpoint a strong characterization of President Roosevelt.

“Roosevelt was about to say something else when suddenly, in the flick of an eye, he turned green and great drops of sweat began to bead off his face; he put a shaky hand to his forehead,” Bohlen recalled. “We were all caught by surprise.”

Note: The pacing of the writing is terrific. Action – “Roosevelt is about to speak,” drama – “suddenly, in the flick of an eye,” more action – “he turned green and great drops of sweat began to bead off his face,” more action – “he put a shaky hand to his forehead,” and finally reaction “We were all caught by surprise.”

Sylvia Nastar

A Beautiful Mind

“When Eleanor irritated him with her complaints, Nash would needle her. He called her stupid and ignorant. He made fun of her pronunciation. He reminded her that she was five years older. Mostly, however, he made fun of her desire to marry him. An MIT professor, he would say, needed a woman who was his intellectual equal. ‘He was always putting me down,’ she recalled. ‘He was always making me feel inferior.’”

Note: Use of words like “irritated,” and “needle” provide fresh meaning for the text. Also notice the correct punctuation regarding the quote used with the quotation marks outside the comma and period.

Marina Picasso

Picasso, My Grandfather

“I feel the sting of the banderilleros’ barbs. I wish the film could be run backwards, so the bull would recover all his glory; the bloody lances soiling his coat would disappear as well as the barbs planted on his neck. I wish the barrera and the steps would vanish into thin air, and that a strong gust of wind would blow away the toreros and their idolatrous public. I wish the bull could be back in his field with his herd. I wish this bullfight had never been.”

Note: Good example of first person writing. Also the paragraph builds with drama as the writer creates the mood and the message intended.

“Two inseparable creatures, like birds who can only live in couples, Pablito and I bound to each other, hand in hand, forehead against forehead. We refuse to take pare in the ignominy of men.”

“We hear ‘ole’ and strident whistling. We are paralyzed with anguish as if brimstone were about to descend from the sky. ‘Do you think he will suffer?’ whispers Pablito.”

Note: Good use of simile regarding the closeness of the two characters.

Rick Warren

The Purpose Driven Life

“It’s not about you.

The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose.”

Note: Excellent beginning for book. Immediately hooks the reader.

Emile Zola

The Dreyfus Affair

“In Paris, the all-conquering truth was on the march, and we know how the predictable storm eventually burst. M. Matthew Dreyfus denounced Major Esterhazy as the real author of the bordereau just as M. Scheurer-Kestner was about to place in the hands of the Minister of Justice a request for a revision of the Dreyfus trial. And this is where Major Esterhazy appears. Witnesses state that first he panicked; he was on the verge of suicide or about to flee. Then suddenly he became boldness itself and grew so violent that all Paris was astonished.”

Note: The dramatics presented set the tone for the paragraph. The last sentence is very powerful, providing the sense of history.

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