Exercise 3: Picture this

The prompt

Part A. Paint a picture in words of a scene represented in a photograph or painting of your choice. 

Part B. Explain the decisions you made as a writer.

Audience

Imagine that your audience consists of people who have never seen the photo or painting you've chosen nor visited the place it depicts. The only image they'll have is the one you paint for them in words.

Tips

To convey the scene vividly, you'll need to channel both Flaubert and Wittgenstein: i.e., to find just the right words and to arrange them in just the right way. The latter part — finding the right form —will no doubt prove the more challenging. So don’t rely on, e.g., lots of adjectives to paint your picture. Instead, focus on form — the grammar of your sentences and the composition of your paragraph(s).

Feel free to use a landscape, still life, or street photograph or painting of your choosing. But if you don't have one in mind, try the following:

• Landscape paintings and photographs.
• Still life paintings and photographs.
• Street scene paintings and photographs. (There's some good Denver street photography here.)

Format and requirements

Part A should be as long (and only as long) as is necessary. Part B — where you explain why you composed Part A as you did — should be at least 500 words, probably longer.

Please include a copy of the image with which you're working (or a link to it) in your Google Doc.

Please post your treatment to Google Drive by the start of next class.