1. DIDLS DICTION IMAGERY DETAILS LANGUAGE SYNTAX STYLE TONE THEME
WORD CHOICE
IMAGERY
APPEALS TO SENSES
DETAILS
SUPPORTS ATTITUDE AND TONE
LANGUAGE
FIGURES OF SPEECH
SOUND DEVICES LITERAY TECHNIQUES
SYNTAX
SENTENCE STRUCTURE
STYLE
WRITER’S MANNER OF EMPLOYING LANGUAGE
TONE
WRITER’S ATTITUDE TOWARD SUBJECT
THEME
GENERAL STATEMENT ABOUT LIFE OR HUMAN NATURE

2. DETAIL
Think “depth.”
Details are most commonly the facts given by the author or speaker as support for the attitude or tone. The speaker's perspective shapes what details are given.
What details does the author include and exclude in the story? The kinds of details the author puts in or leaves out reflect his/her style. Sometimes piling on details creates an effect. Sometimes not mentioning things that you would expect to be mentioned forces a shift in focus.

3. ex. An author describing a battlefield might include paragraph after paragraph of details about the stench of rotting bodies, but he might just say that soldiers died, or he might not even mention death. Each method creates a specific effect. Look closely at what's there and what's not there. Figure out why.

4. “The soldier is on friendlier terms than other men with his stomach and intestines. Three-quarters of his vocabulary is derived from these regions, and they give an intimate flavour to expressions of his greatest joy as well as of his deepest indignation. It is impossible to express oneself in any other way so clearly and pithily. Our families and our teachers will be shocked when we go home, but here it is the universal language”(8). Can you determine context? What’s going on? What is the effect of the lack of details here?

5. Details: The facts given by the author or speaker as support for the attitude or tone. The speaker's perspective shapes what details are given. Look at the following passage from Tolkien's The Hobbit.
Pick out three details and choose a TONE word.
What is his attitude toward the hobbits?
Details
"I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which allows them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow naturally leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown fingers, good- natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). Now you know enough to go on with."
J.R.R. Tolkein. The Hobbit. Ballantine Books, New York. Copyright 1937, 1938, 1966, p. 16.

6. Details: The facts given by the author or speaker as support for the attitude or tone.
The speaker's perspective shapes what details are given.
Look at the following passage from Bless Me Ultima.
Are the details about people, actions, places, object? (Generally, there will be a pattern.)
Are the details concrete or abstract?
Do they contribute to imagery?
Do they seem out of place (perhaps they indicate a shift)?
Details
In the dark midst of my dreams, I saw my brothers.
“The three dark figures silently beckoned me to follow them. They led me over to the goat path, across the bridge, to the house of the sinful women. We walked across the well-worn path in silence. The door to Rosie’s house opened and I caught a glimpse of the women who lived there. There was smoke in the air, sweet from the fragrance of perfume, and there was laughing. My brothers pointed for me to enter… Andrew, I begged to the last figure, do not enter. Andrew laughed. He paused at the gaily lit door and said, I will make a deal with you my little brother, I will wait and not enter until you lose your innocence. But innocence is forever, I cried.”

7. Details: The facts given by the author or speaker as support for the attitude or tone. Think “depth.”
The speaker's perspective shapes what details are given.
Look at the following passage from Bless Me Ultima.
Are the details about people, actions, places, object? (Generally, there will be a pattern.)
Are the details concrete or abstract?
Do they contribute to imagery?
Do they seem out of place (perhaps they indicate a shift)?
Details
In the dark midst of my dreams, I saw my brothers.
“Oh, where is the innocence I must never lose, I cried into the bleak landscape in which I found myself. And in the swirling smoke a flash of lightning struck and out of the thunder a dark figure stepped forth. It was Ultima, and she pointed west, west to Las Pasturas, the land of my birth
She spoke. There in the land of the dancing plains and rolling hills, there in the land which is the eagle’s by day and the owl’s by night is innocence. There where the lonely wind of the llano sang to the lovers’ feat of your birth, there in those rolling hills is your innocence.
But that was long ago, I called. I sought more answers, but she was gone, evaporated into a loud noise.”