The difference between a composition and an essay is that in the first one students are required to set out the facts as they are, the primary objective being their accurate and impartial presentation, while in the second they are expected to give an individual interpretation of facts. | which should be mentioned only briefly and which should be excluded from the story altogether. This selection is what distinguishes the good storyteller from the bad one. The art consists in telling neither too much nor too little but just enough to do justice to both facts and feelings. Making your stories lively interesting and believable Minor details Carefully selected details however minor they might seem contribute to the effect of the whole. For example consider how some of the drama of the narrative in Man Overboard disappears if the detail about the mysterious green monster that turned out to be a sleeping bag or the even more mysterious and frightfully more real monster that dragged it down is omitted. Such details are not essential to the main line of the story but each of them adds to its concreteness and vividness and hence to its interest and effectiveness. Concrete verbs One of the best ways to keep your readers interest and to make your writing accurate and vivid is to use verbs effectively. More than any other part of speech verbs convey action. They tell what happened. Proper nouns A good way to make your writing more interesting and believable is to include proper nouns - names of specific persons places and things - which will help readers feel they are experiencing the story as they read it. Direct Quotation Using the exact words of a speaker also helps to make a story seem real. 10 TEXT 1 Man Overboard By Thor Heyerdahl Thor Heyerdahl s narrative is part of a book entitled Kon - Tiki Across the Pacific by Raft . But the episode forms one complete story 1. . On July 21 the wind suddenly died away again. It was oppressive and absolutely still and we knew from previous experience what this might mean. And right enough after a few violent gusts from east and west and south the wind freshened up to a breeze from southward where black threatening clouds had again rushed up over the horizon. Herman was out with his anemometer all the time measuring .
