Imitating Some of the Best …
From “I See You Never” by Ray Bradbury
Rewrite the following sentence following the patterns below:
She remembered a visit she had once made to some Mexican border towns—the hot days, the endless crickets leaping and falling or lying dead and brittle like the small cigars in the shopwindows, and the canals taking river water out to the farms, the dirt roads, the scorched seascape.
She remembered a visit she had once made to some (adj) (adj) (noun)—the (adj) (noun), the (adj.) (noun+s) (verb+ing) and (verb+ing) or (verb+ing) (adj) and (adj) like the (adj.) (noun+s) in the (noun+s), and the (noun+s) taking (adj) (noun) out to the (noun+s), the (adj) (noun+s), the (adj) (place noun).
She remembered the (adj) (noun+s), the (adj) (noun), the (adj) (adj) (noun) each day. She remembered the (adj) (verb+ing) (plural noun) and the (adj) (plural noun) on the road. She remembered the (adj) (plural noun) and the (adj) (plural noun) and the (adj.) (plural noun) that (verb) hundreds of miles with no (noun) but the (noun)—no (plural noun), no (plural noun), no (noun).
Sentence Imitations: from A Classical Rhetoric for Modern Students by Corbett
Model Sentence: The gallows stood in a small yard, separate from the main grounds of the prison and overgrown with tall prickly weeds. George Orwell - Burmese Days
Example: The dog shivered in the background, wet from nosing his way through the early-morning grasses and covered with damp cocklespurs.
Model Sentence: He went through the narrow alley of Temple Bar quickly, muttering to himself that they could all go to hell because he was going to have a good night of it. James Joyce - Counterparts
Model Sentence: To retain the stage in its own character, not as a mere emulation of prose, poetry must find its own poetic way to the mastery the stage demands -- the mastery of action. Archibald Macleish, The Poet as Playwright
Imitate the following sentences:
1. If one must worship a bully, it is better that he should be a policeman than a gangster. --George Orwell, Raffles and Mrs. Blandish
2. I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. --Henry David Thoreau, Walden
3. To have even a portion of this illuminated reason and true philosophy is the highest state to which nature can aspire, in the way of intellect. --John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University.
4. As most of these old Custom House officers had good traits and as my position in reference to them, being paternal and protective, was favorable to growth of friendly sentiments, I soon grew to like them all. --Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter
5. The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who told their stories round the savage campfire. --Robert Louis Stevenson, A Humble Remonstrance.