At the Corner of Beautiful and Are You Freaking Kidding Me
post by Michelle Griep
I teach a few writing classes. One is for 7th graders and the other for high schoolers. Trust me on this . . . I've pretty much seen it all. Sentences so bad that it scars my writerly soul, and fresh words put together in ways that make me weep. And that's a whole lot of emotion for a stoic like me.
So I thought I'd share the rollercoaster ride with you. Here are some horrific/hilarious similes from high school students (not mine, to protect the innocent) . . .
1. She had him like a toenail stuck in a shag carpet.
2. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
3. Her eyes were like the stars, not because they twinkle, but because they were so far apart.
4. The sun was below the watery horizon, like a diabetic grandma easing into a warm salt bath.
5. Their love burned with the fiery intensity of a urinary tract infection.
This is what writing teachers have to deal with. But now that I've put you through that torture, here are some beautiful sentences as an antidote.
1. “Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
—Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
2. “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”
—J. D. Salinger, “A Girl I Knew”
3. “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
—Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
4. “I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
—Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre
5. "One must be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
—Cassandra Clare, The Infernal Devices
So, which ones were your favorites? Of the horribly/hilarious bunch, I loved number one. In the beautiful batch, tough call. It's a tie between 3 and 1. How about you?
So I thought I'd share the rollercoaster ride with you. Here are some horrific/hilarious similes from high school students (not mine, to protect the innocent) . . .
1. She had him like a toenail stuck in a shag carpet.
2. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
3. Her eyes were like the stars, not because they twinkle, but because they were so far apart.
4. The sun was below the watery horizon, like a diabetic grandma easing into a warm salt bath.
5. Their love burned with the fiery intensity of a urinary tract infection.
This is what writing teachers have to deal with. But now that I've put you through that torture, here are some beautiful sentences as an antidote.
1. “Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
—Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
2. “She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”
—J. D. Salinger, “A Girl I Knew”
3. “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
—Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
4. “I would always rather be happy than dignified.”
—Charlotte Brontë , Jane Eyre
5. "One must be careful of books, and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.”
—Cassandra Clare, The Infernal Devices
So, which ones were your favorites? Of the horribly/hilarious bunch, I loved number one. In the beautiful batch, tough call. It's a tie between 3 and 1. How about you?