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Voice Lesson #2

Detail

Facts, observations and incidents used to develop a topic, shaping and seasoning voice.

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Consider This!

  • Whenever he was so fortunate as to have near him a hare that had been kept too long, or a meat pie made with rancid butter, he gorged himself with such violence that his veins swelled, and the moisture broke out on his forehead.

-Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Samuel Johnson”

  • Discuss:
  • 1) What effect does the detail (the spoiled hare, the rancid butter, the swollen veins, the sweaty forehead) have on the reader?

  • 2) How would the meaning of the sentence be changed by ending it after himself?

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Apply

  • Write a sentence describing someone with disgusting eating habits. It must be one, correct sentence; and it must contain at least three vivid details.

  • His motives were typically immured with covetous avarice, and his gluttonous impropriety was evidenced with spewed spittle, grease-laden fingers and a guttural cacophony of ravenous groans.