An appositive is a noun phrase that adds a second image to a previous noun, expanding details in the reader’s imagination.

Ø The waterfall, a tilted pitcher, poured the fresh, pure spray into the creek.

Ø There were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake, where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire. –Washington Irving

Write a descriptive sentence using an appositive phrase.

Participles, verbals ending in –ed and –ing, evoke action.

Add participles to sentence beginnings:

Ø Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey.

Add participial phrases to sentence beginnings:

Ø Hissing their forked red tongues and coiling their cold bodies, the diamond-scaled snakes attacked their prey.

Add participles & participial phrases throughout a sentence:

Ø Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully, he washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged, for more than a minute, watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against his hand as the boat moved. –Ernest Hemingway

Write a descriptive sentence using a participle or participial phrase.

Absolutes are two-word combinations—a noun and an –ing or –ed verb added onto a sentence.

Ø Claws digging, feet kicking, the cat climbed the tree.

Absolute phrases are formed by adding other descriptive detail to the absolute.

Ø Feet trembling on the snow-covered rocks, the mountain climber edged along the cliff.

Imagine the comma as a zoom lens focusing in on the images:

Ø I glanced at my clock, digits glowing florescent blue in the inky darkness of my room.

Write a descriptive sentence using an absolute phrase.

Adjectives placed out of order amplify the details of an image.

Adjectives in order before the noun:

Ø The large, red-eyed, angry bull moose charged the intruder.

Adjectives shifted out of order for effect:

Ø The large bull moose, red-eyed and angry, charged the intruder.

Consider the effect of the adjectives in this sentence by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in The Hound of the Baskervilles:

Ø And then, suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable.

Write a sentence with three adjectives describing a noun. Place the adjectives in regular order before the noun.

Now, rewrite the sentence by shifting the adjectives out of order:

Energize your writing by eliminating passive verbs and replacing being verbs.

Passive: The runaway horse was ridden into town by an old, white-whiskered rancher.

Active:  An old, white-whiskered rancher rode the runaway horse into town.

Passive: The grocery store was robbed by two armed men.

Active: Two armed men robbed the grocery store.

Being verbs

Replace being verbs with more vivid action verbs.

Being verb: The gravel road was on the left side of the barn.

Action verb: The gravel road curled around the left side of the barn.

Try this:

The sailor was in the bottom of the boat as it was tossed by the jagged gray waves.

In your paper, revise sentences that contain passive or being verbs.