Combining Sentences and Breathing Life into Verbs

Sentence Combining and Bringing Life back into Verbs

Avoiding repetition by Combining Sentences

When you notice several sentences that have a common subject or verb or modifying phrase, this can begin to sound repetitive and monotonous. To liven up your writing and make it stronger and more concise, combine several sentences into one or two sentences.

Example:

Original:

It was a cold night. I got out of bed to get extra blankets because I was feeling so cold. I walked around my house. The house was dark and scary. The house made weird noises when I walked around it at night.

Combined Sentence:

I got out of bed to get blankets because the night was so cold. As I walked around the dark house, the weird noises the house made were scary.

Breathing life back into your VERBS

Verb- an “action” word or word that describes a state of being

Every complete sentence MUST have a subject (a noun or pronoun) and a verb.

Active Verbs: run, jump, throw, meander, stab, explode, etc (words where there is an actual action)

Linking Verbs: is, was, were, have, has, etc (verbs that connect the subject to an adjective, noun, or other verb)

“State of being”: any form of the verb “to be”

VERB RULEs

*Keep your verb tense consistent

*Make sure your subject and verb agree (errors are usually made in forms of the “to be” verbs) refer to the chart above

VERB TIPS:

In order to breathe life back into your verbs…

* Opt for sentences in which the main verb is active and limit sentences in which the main verb is a form of “to be”

*Opt for more concrete rather than vague verbs, avoid forms of the verb “to do,” “to have”

*Opt for an active, rather than passive voice

Example:

Greg was hit by the ball thrown by Christina. (PASSIVE)

Christina threw the ball at Greg. (ACTIVE)

VERB REFERENCE:

Infinitive	Past- Singular subject	Past- plural subject	Present- Singular subject	Present Plural Subject (or 1st or 2nd person singular)
To be	was	were	is	Are (I) am (You) are
To do	did	did	Does	Do (I/You) do
To have	had	had	has	Have (I/You) have

Try applying what we learned about verbs to our earlier sentence:

Original:

I got out of bed to get blankets because the night was so cold. As I walked around the dark house, the weird noises the house made were scary.

Revised:

The cold forced me out of bed in search of extra blankets. Each step I took in the darkness groaned and creaked until I shivered. I told myself I was just cold, but I was lying.

YOU TRY:

Take the original passage below and try revising it to avoid repetition by combining sentences and liven up the language by revising the verbs and voice:

One memory I have of Mexico was when some of the cousins and uncles and aunties were together. My Auntie Marta said, “Hey let’s head out to Manzanillo.” It’s a four hour drive from where we were at. We divided into two SUV’s. One of course was my dad’s. It was a GMC Yukon XL. The other was my uncle’s truck. Girls went in one of the trucks and the boys went in the other one.

Revised Version

I remember when my Auntie Marta brought a bunch of my cousins, uncles, and aunties together in a trip to Manzanillo.For the four hour drive, from ____(the actual city where they statrted), all the girls rode in my dad's GMC Yukon XL and all the boys rode into my uncle's truck.

Business Letter

HW due MOnday: Revised Business Letter (preferably typed, but if not, we will be in the library Tuesday to type)

Below is a site that has a business letter templates:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/653/02/

Focus and format

Focus and Format

Before revising for focus and format, you musty first answer the following:

What is the focus of my piece?

Examples:

1. My grandfather’s death

2. My fear of dying a horrible death

3. My determination to keep going despite struggles

4. The irony of the spork

5. How character x comes from nothing and becomes a hero

6. How my first love changed my life

7. How difficult it is to do the right thing when the wrong one is so tempting

Etc…

What is the purpose and tone of my piece?

Examples:

1. To show my confusion in the moment, and later sadness that he’s gone (Tone: somber and sad)

2. To scare the reader (Tone: suspenseful and mysterious)

3. To inspire others (Tone: hopeful)

4. To make my reader laugh (Tone: satirical and humorous)

5. To entertain (Tone:changes- humorous, hopeful, sad, suspenseful)

6. To express myself (Tone: romantic and humorous)

7. To express myself and connect w/ reader (serious, angry, hopeful)

What format would best fit my writing style, the focus of my piece, and mood I’m going for?

Examples:

     1. A memoir written in first person because I can describe the memory and also say what I learned from the experience

     2. A scary short story

     3. A poem

     4. A satirical essay

     5. A long story- include an excerpt

     6. A vignette of our first kiss

     7. A short story about a guy who gets caught up but changes

Once you’ve established what it is you’re writing, go through your piece and

àDelete or compress parts that don’t fit your purpose or tone

àExpand and add detail to parts that match your focus and tone

Other ways to add focus:

     Remove irrelevant information that doesn’t move the story forward

     Remove extra words in apoem and focus on concrete images

     Take out anecdotes or examples in an essay that aren’t funny (if that’s the tone) or don’t add to your focus

     Express the main idea in a variety of ways, using comparisons, dialogue, examples, summary, description. Don’t just say it the same way over and over again

     Take out an action or dialogue that doesn’t fit the character or doesn’t relate to the plot

As always, please see me for specific help. I’m here in class and available at lunch daily

revision tips part 1

Take it out, let it go

What to remove or replace in your work:

Repetition

--in ideas

Her mother hated me. “Get out of my house!” She threw a lamp at me. I ran out feeling like garbage.

-- information

My sister was three years older than me and she bossed me around and told me what to do. I hated being her younger sister because she bullied me so much.

àtake out the obvious and explicit (keep details)

àkeep it clear and concise

Remove the Irrelevant- doesn’t belong, reader doesn’t need to know it, it’s implied elsewhere, it contradicts your point and distracts from your message

Example: He looked like a gangster but really he was a good guy who never hurt anyone, except once he kicked a cat, but the cat was attacking him so it made sense that he kicked it but he was usually really nice to cats.

*Combine any sentences that can be combined

She was bored in class. She hated class. The teacher talked too much. Nothing the teacher said was important. She wanted to sleep.

She hated class because the teacher talked too much.

à”Blah blah blah…” the teacher droned on as the student’s eyes drooped and her friend elbowed her to keep her awake. God she hated this class.

Adding detail

Step 1: What is the point/ focus/ message of your piece? What makes it interesting? What’s the mood?

Step 2: Look through your piece for the following:

-Areas where you “tell” the reader what happened, explaining how you feel, how a character feels or spending more than a paragraph on background – (obvious, explicit information)

For example:

 I felt bad when he hurt me

We fought and then we broke up and I never got over it.

I liked him a lot and he didn’t like me.

They thought the house looked weird and they didn’t want to go in.

à make this more implicit (subtle, SHOW don’t tell)

-Areas that are vague or too abstract

For example: “I felt sad”

“She looked at me in a cute way”

“the house was scary”

“It was important”

è Make these more concrete

Step 3: Use the “Description Tips” below for help in how to add detail

Description Tips

When writing descriptions, don’t forget to do the following:

Use specific detail to describe how it happened so the reader can experience it and understand it. Try asking and answering the following questions:

-How did they do it? Describe they way they moved as if it were in slow motion or as if you were a director telling an actor what to do.

-What did they say?

-How did they say it? What did their voice sound like?

-What did it look like? Describe it to someone who has never seen it before.

-If you answer with adjectives, can you use more descriptive or “juicy”  ones or can you compare it to something else w/ a metaphor or simile?

-Describe the specific steps of the action.

-What were the other people doing?

-Describe the setting?

-What is the narrator or character feeling or thinking? What are their exact thoughts/ feelings?

-If you used an emotion- how might that emotion look or sound or otherwise show on that person?

-Is this a positive or negative experience or what is the mood or tone of the story? Does that show in your description? What can you add/change to show this?

-Does the description you’ve added provide anymore information about the subject being described or even the narrator than a summary would?

Use juicy adjectives (look at JA handout), adverbs, (“she said nervously”) and active verbs (“she stuttered”)

Use dialogue (instead of the friends argued write out what they actually said)

Use figurative language like metaphors (comparison saying something is something else “the kitchen is a shadowy cave”) and similes (comparison using like or as “The kitchen was as dark as a cave” or “The kitchen was like a cave, filled with shadows”

àLook back to “The Family of Little Feet” and the metaphor/simile activity

Use imagery (paint a picture with words “she breaks an egg into the volcano crater of flour” instead of “she used eggs and flour to make the dough”)

Sensory detail- Use all 5 senses:

What do you see, hear, smell, taste,&  feel?