Those are the words of my sweet 10 year old daughter. She had to write a paragraph at school about a beautiful garden, and those words just really struck me. Are you just experiencing that waterfall with her upon hearing those words? I know that I am!

It’s funny, because, a group of friends and I have been having a lot of discussions lately about just this sort of thing. Taking your readers there with you, right into the scene, and letting them wholly experience it with you - like you’re looking at it on a viewsonic monitor - or even better, like you’re actually there! And here that concept is so beautifully demonstrated by a fifth grader! That’s just awesome!

I would love to share with you her whole paragraph, though, as I found it really sweet:

Designing a Garden

My imaginary garden is beautiful! In my garden I have all kinds of flowers. Also my garden has a rocky path leading up to a stream of water comeing from a rushing, gushing, spectacular water fall! With fish, tadpoles, and frogs. Next to the stream is a open field with a gazebo in the middle. In the middle of the gazebo is a swing. Sometimes I will move the gazebo and put a beautiful mahogany picnic table. Surronding the field is all kinds of trees and flowers. Some of the trees are: pecan, oak, apple, and Maple. Some of the flowers are: Daises, roses, and daffodils. Also I have fruits and vegatables.

I left her mistakes in place, because, they are cute, and I wanted to you read it as I see it on thepaper. (I’d scan it if it wasn’t in pencil and my scanner wasn’t fussy.) And the colorations were my doing, so I could emphasize that beautiful use of ‘taking your audience with you’. And also so that I could point out that, yes, that child’s father is a carpenter - how did you guess? Winking 2