Today, we will take the words from you list and match them. If you were to write this in a notebook, you could just draw arrows (that makes it kind of look like a ladder). Since we are doing it digitally, we will just write them down like this:
VERBS NOUNS
Examine → Guitar
or
Examine…Guitar
However you like. The idea is to put verbs and nouns together that you might not have thought to use before. You will connect all ten of your words. Then choose at least three to incorporate into a writing. Be forewarned that some of the pairings will not be good, but likely, some will be interesting!
Sirens swim towards the horizon
The pavement drowns the flock
The hands ripple as the clock quenches
The bubbling sun yearning to stop
Shoes swallow the path ahead
The book swirls toward the end
Where flowers flow on unmarked land
And we are left to pretend
I wanted to try to use more than three just to demonstrate how this exercise could work. What I have written is not great, but it has made me use words in groupings that I would not have thought of otherwise. This in turn helps us with “showing” vs “telling” because (hopefully) the reader’s interest is aroused from the unexpected usage. Then, I have the ability to edit and re-do some stuff later using the other tools we have picked up throughout all of these exercises and make something a little better.
The officers ripple through the city
The piano produces a swirl of harmony
The oil stain invites every colour of the rainbow
The spitfire burbles through the sky
You are absolutely right that the audience loves nothing more than a slightly unexpected word pairing, and this is another great exercise to create some unique collisions. Some really interesting sentences you have constructed!
You have some really neat pairings there. One thing I noticed is that you actually made your “swirl” verb into a noun in the second line. It is a neat image nonetheless, but maybe could be more interesting if the piano swirled into a harmony (since we all expect a piano to “produce” a sound). I love the stain inviting the rainbow, because it makes a stain into something nice, rather than something unwelcome. Well done. I will try to do another word ladder exercise soon for us.
The cow flows down the hill to the hay
A Roses petals trickle down the stems
The buxus hedge in a rush around the garden beds
as the fire becomes stagnate on a cold winters day
White rabbits glisten like a fast moving snow
I love what you came up with. Cows flowing, petals trickling… such moving imagery! The only critique is you let “stagnate” become an adjective rather than the verb. The fire becomes stagnate is still an awesome image though!
this was fun. it was nice to return to normal ‘object writing’.
swim - cum (sorry)
run - twin peaks
erode - my face
overflow - light bulb
drown - screen
float - dust
drink - dead cockroach
reflect - girl
sink - tumblr
choke - trash room
my fingers are nearly arthritic. clicking on chiclet keyboard keys with rage that only sounds like muted tapping. like puking into a kitchen sink my thoughts spew onto tumblr.com and muddy up a dashboard of nostalgic product design and film screenshots. the inside of my mouth erodes with bitter acid. an image of a clear plastic imac, speckled with the dust floating around my room. finding home on the glossy screen i stare into all day, as if its deeper than a few millimeters. drowning in it like an adult flailing in a kiddy pool. the lack of ambient light in my apartment means this time of day fades into a void. a small pinhole leak is an exposed light bulb screwed into my ceiling that overflows. flickering crystalline shards refract off my glasses. the electrical ticking sounds like crickets