Chapter 5 exercise

Sitting outside of my apartment building, the sun is shining over me. The temperature outside is perfect, and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. There aren’t many people around right now because a lot of people are in class at this time a day. There is a girl over by the empty basketball court doing her homework. The grass is well groomed and feels wonderful to lie in. The birds are singing in the trees around me and the few people that pass by remain quiet, almost as if not to disturb me.

The sun is practically blinding, it’s so bright outside. Everyone is at class so the landscaping crew is here, running their loud mowers and blowers and disturbing my peace and quiet. A train comes blaring through the apartment complex, wailing on its horn excessively, annoying every human being within hearing distance. A car comes by blowing the horn to pick someone up even though the soon to be passenger was already aware of its presence. There just seems to be disturbance after disturbance, not to mention the bugs that are lingering.

This exercise shows that the details included mean everything in how an image is portrayed. In the first description, the cars and train weren’t included in the description because they weren’t going to enhance the description in a positive manner. Similarly, in the second description, there is no talk about the birds or the beautiful weather and the sun is seen as a bad thing as opposed to how it was described initially. Whether trying to make the environment sound pleasant or awful, everything is factual in the descriptions yet, the language shapes how the reader visualizes the scene. When the writer uses language such as “perfect temperature” and “birds singing,” the reader is going to see the scene as a pleasant one that provides relaxation. When the writer is using hateful language such as “disturbing peace” and “annoying,” the reader will assume the writer is miserable in their current environment.