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Writing Exercises
Read the passage below from Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. The parts of the passage shown in green are lyrics to blues songs.
If my mother was in a singing mood, it wasn't so bad. She would sing about hard times, bad times, and somebody-done-gone-and-left-me times. But her voice was so sweet and her singing-eyes so melty I found myself longing for those hard times, yearning to be grown without "a thin di-I-ime to my name." I looked forward to the delicious time when "my man" would leave me, when I would "hate to see that evening sun go down..." 'cause then I would know "my man has left this town." Misery colored by the greens and blues in my mother's voice took all of the grief out of the words and left me with a conviction that pain was not only endurable, it was sweet.
Answer the questions below.
1. What do the details about the lyrics add to the passage?
2. Why is pain associated with sweet in this passage?
Interactive Games
Have you ever wanted to know which author you write like? Go to I Write Like and see for yourself. Copy and paste anything that you have written into the textbox and select Analyze to find out your results.
Read the model sentence. Then combine all of the plain sentences below into just one sentence that imitates the author's sentence.
1. "He knew the bears would soon be leaving their winter dens, to travel, to claim their old ranges, to challenge intruders, and to fight their fearful battles among themselves." (Hal Borland, When the Legends Die)
She knew something about her son.
She knew he would soon be entering college.
Her son would be entering college to learn, to broaden his horizons.
Her son would be entering college to make new friends and to discover new opportunities the world has to offer him.
2. "A light kindled in the sky, a blaze of yellow fire behind dark barriers." (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings)
A racket exploded.
The racket exploded from the forest.
The racket was a screech.
The squawk was of angry ravens.
The ravens were sitting in decomposing trees.
3. "The children, shouting and screaming, came charging back into their homeroom." (Rosa Guy, The Friends)
The puppies were yapping.
The puppies were whimpering.
The puppies came racing out of their cages.
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