Words that Sing: Composing Lyrical Prose by Nilsen Mary Ylvisaker

Author:Nilsen, Mary Ylvisaker [Nilsen, Mary Ylvisaker]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2013-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

Story-Telling

As illustration, story-telling is a powerful tool in sermon and article writing, essays and all literary nonfiction. An illustrative story can be a complete metaphor. As such, writers need to carefully think through how well it fits. People always remember the story, and rarely remember disclaimers put on it.

Student Samples

Student Sample 1

I

like to walk. That doesn’t mean I like to take walks or go for walks. There is a difference you know. Taking a walk implies leisure. It is a genteel activity. One can almost smell the crumpets and taste the tea. Walks are usually taken in the early evening when the air is balmy and the streets emptied of work-day traffic. Walk takers stroll slowly, aimlessly, enjoying each step, each breath, each sight. They often walk in pairs, chatting as fallen leaves swirl away from their shuffling feet. Sometimes they are young lovers, walking arm in arm, giving each other strength through the touch of their bodies. And sometimes they are old lovers, holding each other’s arms, giving each other support lest they fall.

But I am middle aged, restless, intense, and when I walk I walk to get from here to there. There? In the day-to-day reality of my life, there is my office in the Jefferson Building, or my rhetoric class in EPB, or the library card catalogue or stacks. There is about two and a half miles from here and it only takes thirty-five minutes to reach.

I always walk alone—and fast—searching for the shortest, quickest distance between two points. This route takes me across malls, through parking lots, and down alleys. It requires jaywalking across Burlington Avenue during rush hour traffic and jogging across streets against red lights. It is permeated with risk. It is motivated by pressure.

When you begin your professional life twenty years late; when you need to retrieve information long buried under dirty diapers and peanut butter sandwiches and Little League games and juvenile court; when you look ahead, knowing that at best you have only a third of your life left; then you walk and you walk fast.

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