Week 8

I’ve always been a huge Harry Potter fan; I love anything and everything Harry. With that said, my example this week comes from “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. “

“Smith really was an idiot, thought Harry, hadn’t he noticed them collide? But next moment, his stomach seemed to drop out of the sky - Smith was right and Harry was wrong: Harry had not sped upward at random; he had spotted what Harry had not: The Snitch was speeding along high above them, glinting brightly against the clear blue sky.

            Harry accelerated; the wind was whistling in his ears so that it drowned all sound of Smith’s commentary or the crowd, but Harper was still ahead of him, and Gryffindor was only a hundred points up; if Harper got there first Gryffindor had lost… and now Harper was feet from it, his hand outstretched…. “

            “Oi, Harper!” yelled Harry in desperation. “How much did Malfoy pay you to come on instead of him?”

            He did not know what made him say it, but Harper did a double-take; he fumbled the Snitch, let it slip through his fingers, and shot right past it. Harry made a great swipe for the tiny, fluttering ball and caught it.”

This section exemplifies several different styling techniques discussed in Chapter 10. Chapter 10 talks about “word selection” and how words can create imagery and style. JK Rowling brings this particular scene to life by selecting powerful and lively words. (accelerated, glinting, fumbled, fluttering, swipe etc.)

Chapter 10 also mentions that effective writers will occasionally use fragments or long, run-on sentences to achieve special effects. I think this expert from Harry Potter shows that sometimes long, run-on sentences can be effective. It also shows that “Varying sentence length helps maintain interest while giving you the opportunity to use rhythm for drama and emphasis.”

I found my grammar mistake this week on Facebook. I saw the following post:

“I love you and are so thankful for your example and how lucky we are to have you apart of our life's…”

This post has several grammatical errors and can be corrected as follows:

I love you and am so thankful for your example. We are lucky to have you as a part of our lives.