Abstract Ideas and Concrete Details Exercises

Part of the thrill of writing is conveying concepts of universal human interest. For many readers, the insights of fiction are what draw them back to books again and again, and writers want the opportunity to communicate their own.

Those insights and themes, though a useful starting point, require further development so that readers can absorb themselves in the story. By making abstract concepts concrete, we give readers the opportunity to abstract those concepts on their own, participating in the story.

In other words, the writer encodes an abstract concept into a series of concrete details, and the reader then decodes those details and reassembles the abstract concept.

A writer should master the ability to transform the abstract into the concrete, and this exercise offers practice in that ability.

Write a sentence of description for someone who is without using the word(s).

Write a sentence of action for someone who is without using the word(s).

Use a simile or metaphor to describe how something is.

Done?

Print this page from your browser.