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[UFP]Ghost
17 Mar 2007, 01:46
I need to write descriptive literature essay speech of a story for Monday and i actually suck. well i need help you to help me if you could make it sound descriptive.
**You can change any detail, i changed a few cause i couldn't remember the entire thing**
Basically i want it to sound like this sentence the my teacher wrote for me:
I was watching the steady waterfall of white granules as they streamed into my coffee.
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I remember the story quite clearly as if it happened yesterday. It all started when I was slouching on the uncomfortable chairs in the kitchen. I was over at the [Geneeric Family Name] house as I was quite often with our family being close friends and all. I was watching the steady waterfall of white granules as they streamed into my coffee. I put the sugar jar down softly they began to outstretch my arm to grab the coffee. As I brought the cup up I could feel the warmth as I watched the gray silky steam rise. I touched the cup to my lip and felt a slight burning sensation. Then suddenly I was interrupted by a sound coming from the other room. It felt as if it were coming closer, so I slowly put the cup down.
GIRL, the [Geneeric Family Name]’s youngest daughter who’s two years alder then I am strided into the room. She strolled over to me with a grin as if she had just won the lottery. She shattered the silence with a greeting, questioning how I was and my level of boredom. I was quite bored because my mom and her mom had been gabbing away for the last hour. She asked me what I would like to do and I replied that I had no clue. She offered to play whatever I wanted but when I failed to reach a conclusion she had. She raised her eye brow in excitement and asked me excitedly if I wanted to play hide and seek. I was hesitant being thirsty and having been handed my coffee, but I agreed.
She had decided that I was to be the seeker first through the use of me picking a number between one and ten. I counted to ten in a fast pace as if to throw her off and make her rush so she would make noise in the direction she went. I then opened my eyes and the light entered them and I quickly blocked the bright blowing ball of fire. I had heard her go to the right of the room so I headed into the living room. Which was lovely furnished with decorations of all sorts. I began to look behind and under the couch, she was nowhere to be seen. I decided to check the food storage closet, which is always over packed with delicious foods of all sorts. Just as I had suspected she was standing there as stiff as a board against the door.
It was then my turn to hide and her turn to seek and I had to find a good hiding place. I stood next to her and instructed her to begin counting as I contemplated a spot to hide. I saw a cat and scared it into running the opposite direction as me, to attempt to confuse her. I sprinted with incredible speed up the stairs and still had 5 seconds to hide. I sneaked into her room as quiet as a mouse and began to think where the best place to hide was. I came to the conclusion that hiding behind the bed would be a good idea. As I proceeded to the bag, I stumbled on something soft. I began to check on my legs for scrapes and cuts but I let out a sigh as I realized I was ok. I whipped my head as I was relieved and had been worried which caused me to sweat.
I was about to whip my hands on my shirt when I realized that there was a giant brown spot on the shirt. I then rushed up from the ground only to see what I had landed in. I had fallen in one of the cat’s brown sticky presents. I began to worry intensely fearing what my mom would say and what my sisters and GIRL would say if they saw me. I decided to be independent and try to do things my own way.
I entered the bathroom and turned the tap to reveal clear fast flowing liquid. I locked the door to ensure privacy and removed my shirt, I took the bar of soap and my shirt and put them under water. I began to scrub intensely and was exited as the first part of the stain began to come off. I began to scrub harder but the stain wasn’t coming off enough. As I continued GIRL didn’t hear the water and continued to look for me. She told our mothers that she couldn’t find me after a little while because she was worried.
My mom heard the water and quietly came upstairs to the door, and tried to open it. She realized it was locked and asked me if I was in there, after I answered she asked me if I was alright. Being a kid of eight I was scared and frightened because everything had gone wrong. I answered her with a sort of sadness in my voice and she asked me to open the door. After about a minute of being hesitant I opened the door.
I began to cry being frightened and ashamed of myself at the same time. I realized I had failed and then it would have been smarter to go to my mother at first. My mom then fixed everything by putting the shirt into the wash and lending my one of GIRL’s old tee-shirts that didn’t look girly.
Ending???

pilot62
17 Mar 2007, 11:14
Well, I don't think any of us are going to do your bloody homework for you.
What I will say is that story is horrible to read. You've just shoehorned loads of adjectives and descriptive verbs, often in inappropriate places, and that doesn't make a good descriptive story on it's own. Instead of adding more adjectives, add more details, if you see what I mean. Details don't have to be adjectives, but being descriptive you need loads of details.
You've started pretty much every sentence with a personal pronoun: I did this; she did that, etc. The variety of sentence structures is terrible. Use ing verbs to start or time phrases like while or suddenly. Try to make your sentences more complex, not just the basic 'I did this and then she did that' sort of thing.
Also, try to show, rather than tell. For instance if in a story it was raining, instead of saying 'it was raining' you could say something like 'the rhythmic tapping of raindrops against my window' or 'the field grew ever muddier as the rain intensified'. Admittedly, they're not the best sentences in the world but they're many times better than the simple one. The reader knows it's raining without you just simply saying thus, and it adds much more detail as well.
And use metaphors more, for one thing if used well it can really add to a description, and teachers bloody love them.
Also, the past of 'to stride' is strode, not strided.
In that sentence you say your teacher wrote, use watched, not was watching. Was watching implies you were doing it when something happened, but it's a completed action in that story.
For example:
"I've never forgotten that Sunday summer afternoon, and nor do I suppose I ever will. As I waited in the kitchen I slouched into a wooden, hard backed chair. I looked for a cushion to make the chair more bearable but, for some reason, there were none in the [Generic Family Name]'s house today. Our family and theirs had known each other for years, and in my many visits to their house there'd always been some around. I wondered where they'd gone. I reached for the sugar jar and watched as the steady waterfall of white granules streamed into my coffee. Putting the sugar jar down softly I outstretched my arm to grab the steaming coffee. The cup was beginning to burn my hand so quickly I brought it up to my lips to take a sip, but as the brown liquid fell onto my tongue it burned and I quickly put the cup back down again, spilling a little over the side in my haste. As I rolled my injured tongue around inside my mouth I watched the grey steam rise slowly towards the ceiling, and decided I'd wait a minute or two before I tried to drink it again."
I'm not going to pretend that's very good because it isn't and I'm sure you can do better, if you spend a little time on it (and don't copy it, partly because it's cheating, partly becuase it was a quick job and partly because the style will be different to the rest anyway), but it contains much more detail and a wider range of sentance types, and if you did that sort of thing all the way through you'd make your story much better.

[UFP]Ghost
17 Mar 2007, 15:12
well i rewrote it better and i didn't ask for someone to rewrite it for me, i more wanted tips or examples of places i fouled up.

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