It's been a while, how about an exercise or two?

From "MFA Insider" in Writer's Digest March/April 2009 issue.

These are said to have been sent from THE writing teacher John Gardner, to one of his students-turned-professor, Charles Johnson. I'm going to try them out myself, but they are TOUGH!

"1. Write three effective long sentences: each at least one full typed page (or 250 words), each involving a different emotion (for example, anger, pensiveness, sorrow, joy). Purpose: control of tone in a complex sentence.

2. Describe a character in a brief passage (one or two pages) using mostly long vowels and soft consonants (o as in "moan," e as in "see"; l, m, n, sh, etc.); then describe the same character, using mostly short vowels and hard consonants (i as in "Sit"; k, t, p, gg, etc.). The prupose of this exercise, Gardner wrote, is to helps students see that 'describing a scene in mostly long vowels and soft consonants achieves and effect far different from that achrieved by a passage mostly in short vowels and hard consonants.'

3. Write a monologue of at least three pages, in which the interruptions 00 pauses, gestures, descriptions, etc-- all clearly and persuasively characterize, and the shifts from monologue to gesture and touches of setting (as when the character touches some object or glances out of the window) all feel rhythmically right. Purpose: to learn ways of letting a character make a long speech that doesn't seem boring or artificial."