Writing with Queen Mama Lesson 2

Did you write your original 3000 piece essay? For the sake of being concise, mine is a wee bit smaller (a whole paragraph!).

My mother ushered all four of us down the terminal and then sank into a seat next to another military mom, wrestling with her own four children. Mom started to talk to her and discovered the woman had traveled from Fort Lewis (it's always the first question military families ask: where were you last stationed. In civilian life, it's hard to adapt to the "where are you from"" questions) to Philadelphia to visit family. They started to talk even further and discovered her two boys would be going to the same high school as my brother. I leaned over and whispered to my sister, "He's cute." And like most 11 year olds would, she started to chant, "Patty has a boyfriend! Kissing..." I rolled my eyes and my cheeks grew red. I said he was cute. I never said I wanted to date him.

Now, the next step is adding detail. This--adding detail--means taking sentences that I "told" rather than showed and expanding them so they paint a picture in my reader's mind. In a quick read, my first sentence uses strong verbs that paint a picture. But sentence #2 tells rather than show. Here's my original sentence:

Mom started to talk to her and discovered the woman had traveled from Fort Lewis (it's always the first question military families ask: where were you last stationed. In civilian life, it's hard to adapt to the "where are you from"" questions) to Philadelphia to visit family.

Here's my detailed sentence.




The youngest, a 4 year old brunette, twisted between her mother's knee as she struggled to readjust her pigtails. She broke free of her mother, freeing one side and started to run around the chairs where we sat. "Carol, don't bother the people!" she said. "Michael, get your sister." A thin boy that looked like Danny from Karate kid, leaned over as his sister raced past him and grabbed her by the shirt.

The mother gathered the girl up onto her lap and pulled her loose hair into a sloppy pigtail. She then turned to my mother, "I'm sorry. She's sometimes can be a handful."

"I can understand that," my mother said. "You traveling alone?"

"Yes," she said. "We drove here from Ft. Lewis to visit with family. We're headed to Germany. My husband is there already."

"So is mine. What base?"

"Ramstein."

My mother pointed her thumb at my brother. "We are too. Harold here will be going to Ramstein American High School."

"So will my boys," she said.

"What grade?"

"Michael is going to be a freshman and Bobby is a sophomore," she said.

"Harold is a sophomore," mom said. "Why don't we get your information and maybe we can set up a time for the boys to meet up?"

"That'll be nice."

The boys--all three of them--exchanged looks.

I leaned over and whispered to my sister, "He's cute." And like most 11 year olds would, she started to chant, "Patty has a boyfriend! Kissing..."

 I rolled my eyes and my cheeks grew red. I said he was cute. I never said I wanted to date him.


See the improvement? At this point the details do not have to be truthful. I honestly don't remember how our mothers started to talk. My original paragraph is all the details I remember so with the rewrite I added details in how it could have gone. As you probably have guessed, your assignment for today is to go back through your 3000 word essay and find sentences where you can add details.