The Action of a Sentence

In The Elements of Style, Strunk and White advise writers to concentrate on writing with verbs and nouns. These two parts of speech give "good writing its toughness and color."

The following exercise is from from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones.

Assignment: Fold a sheet of paper in half. On the left side write ten specific nouns. Example:

lilacs
horse
mustache
cat
fiddle
muscles
dinosaur
seed
plug
video

Then, on the right side of the paper, list ten verbs the describe the actions of someone in a certain occupation. For example, if the occupation was a restaurant chef:

saute
chop
mince
slice
cut
heat
broil
taste
broil
bake
fry
marinate
whip
stir
scoop

Write five sentences, each using a noun from your first list and verbs from your second list. Play with combinations. Here are some examples:

• Dinosaurs marinate in the earth.
• The fiddles boiled the air with their music.
• The lilacs sliced the sky into purple.