Writing Exercise Eight

(Verbs)

Write your story once again, but this time re-write every verb. If you have been writing your story on the computer, you can use the thesaurus built into the word processing program. Change every verb in a way that you increase the vividness of the action, increase the imagery. Change every verb? Not every verb! Yeah. Every one. At least give it a try, and then write your meta-narrative paragraph.

R. Buckminster Fuller, one of the world's most creative and productive geniuses — inventor of the geodesic dome, among many other marvelous, and increasingly familiar, things — had a saying that was often reproduced on t-shirts and posters: "I seem to be a verb." Fuller believed that the act of creation was more important than the object created, process more important than product. Verbs are the root of language. Nouns are fossilized verbs. Care with choosing verbs will add vividness to your writing; recognition of the importance of verbs will also get you to recognize the importance of the activity of writing itself.

Reminder, reminder, reminder:

Your story should now take the form of a real story. It should be at least five paragraphs long. It should have enough detail to get the reader interested.

You should have an introduction that does what introductions do: gets your reader interested and states what your story is about.

You should have a conclusion that does what conclusions do: unifies your story and leaves the reader with a compelling image to remember your story by.

The body of your story should have enough detail to sustain your reader's interest in your story as a human story.

Meta-Narrative Eight: Write a paragraph that accounts for any resistance you encounter in making changes in the verbs. Here are some possible questions to consider: Which words did you want to keep in the original? Which verbs are only relational? Which verbs are better, the ones you changed or the originals?

Afterthought: How many nouns can you think of that still retain their verb-ness?

A box is a receptacle for something that is boxed by someone.

A sidewalk is a path made permanent alongside a road for us to walk upon.

A road, a name for that which we ride on.

What is a house but the secure place that houses us?

Go to Exercise Nine

Go to Verb Examples by Edwin Way Teale

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