noun absolute

The noun absolute is a power structure that belongs in your style. All great writers routinely use noun absolutes. In fact, you won't find a great work of fiction without oodles of noun absolutes. You form a noun absolute by taking a noun (or pronoun) and adding five different structures: (1) true adjective, (2) present-participial phrase (-ing phrase), (3) past-participial phrase (-ed phrase), (4) prepositional phrase, and (5) true noun. Here are examples of the five types:

1. Noun (or pronoun) + True Adjective or Adjectival Phrase Her face red with embarrassment, the Senator finally found her place in her notes and continued her speech, the crowd uneasy with her discomfort.

2. Noun (or pronoun) + Present Participle The parties raised $50,000, the founder paying $40,000, the others contributing $10,000.

3. Noun (or pronoun) + Past Participle These issues resolved, the agency turned its attention to other matters.

4. Noun (or pronoun) + Prepositional Phrase “He lay flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms ….” (The first sentence in Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls.)

5. Noun (or pronoun) + Noun He ignores scientific principles, his theories a wish list of insupportable propositions.