October is the richest of the seasons: the fields are cut, the granaries are full, the bins are loaded to the brim with fatness, and from the cider press the rich brown oozings of the York Imperials run. The bee bores to the belly of the yellowed grape, the fly gets old and fat and blue, he buzzes loud, crawls slow, creeps heavily to death on sill and ceiling, the sun goes down in blood and pollen across the bronzed and mown field of old October.

RECOGNIZE AND CREATE IMAGES.  In language, an image is a mental impression, a visual unit of meaning, created for the reader by a word group formed for this purpose by the writer.  It is a  "slice of life," a minute scene which makes  a sharp impression or powerful impact on the reader's senses. Images are one of the writer's most potent instruments. They make a general statement specific, and they inject the energies of life into language. You may create images by representing sensations or touch, taste, smell, sound,or vision. For instance, Wolfe's choice of "buzzes" imitates the actual sound of a fly.  The effectiveness of any image depends upon the kinds of words the writer chooses; the words are successful if they create an image that clearly conveys a sense of physical reality to the reader.
ARRANGE IMAGES IN A SEQUENCE.   If you read Wolfe's paragraph carefully, you will notice a plan. The images he unfolds follow a certain scheme.  He opens with a wide statement. Then, he begins generating images to show us what he means.  He begins and ends with October, and this gives a sense of unity to the paragraph.  But in between, he moves from the large to the tiny and then back to the large. Wolfe might have chosen some other method of arranging his images. But he chose to go from a distant to the "close-up" and then,  once more to a wide sweeping image.  His last image provides a frame or background for the entire scene; such an image is often called a frame image because it helps you join individual elements of your scene to form a single impression.

ASSIGNMENT: Use one of the following sentences as your organizing sentence to develop a short paragraph. Draw on your memories to build a series of vivid images which make a clear, direct appeal to the reader.

a. July, the month of heavy, blinding heat, had arrived.
b. The world is oblong in October
c. Winter reveals the inner machinery of life.
d. "April is the cruelest month," wrote T.S. Eliot.