Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee's Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students

These sentences, and this mimicking exercise is taken from Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee’s Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students
Below you’ll find two sentences that I’ve arranged so that you can see the parts. The first one shows the use of four prepositional phrases in a row, an interesting stylistic choice, and something that you can try to mimic. You’ll see that I’ve given an example, right below it, of my own mimicking attempt. The second one is equally interesting because the subject and verb of the sentence sit in the middle of two extensive branches—left and right. Both are interesting sentences to mimic. The rest of the sentences are divided by type, and aren’t set out in this way, but you could arrange them in whatever way helps you to see the parts, and then try your hand at mimicking the structure with different ideas/concept as the theme for the sentence structure type!
Crossing the common         in snow puddles         at twilight         under a clouded sky         without . . . good fortune I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.
MY TRY:
Running away from the college campus under duress from too many papers to grade with students racing after me in my worst running shoes without the sense to just stop and face my realityI have considered serious medication.
YOUR TRY:
Cycling towards home while passing through an unfamiliar neighborhood
under the cover of darkness
with a stray dog chasing after me
without knowledge whether I am nearer or farther away from familiar roads
I have decided to know the area well during the coming days
Wrapped in his feather cape         his winged boots he sent his soul flying to Zede     while holding             his body             his thought             his attentions on Carlotta, whom he did not cease to love.
My TRY: Saddled with her tiny dog, her barking fool, she wished she weren’t traveling on an airplane while holding her pet carrier, her albatross, her daily burden to bear, her reluctant attachment, whom she did not cease to love. 
YOUR TRY
Seated in is beat-up car, his worthwhile machine, he hoped that he werent’t far away from his destination, his thoughts his worries about the weather, which he hoped would not interrupt his trip.
Simple sentence:
Mary loves John.
Sample 1     London was hideous, vicious, cruel, and above all overwhelming.  Henry James.
Imitation     Our town was ugly, empty, cold, and above all forbidding.
Your Try:   The manufacturing town was now rusty, uninhabited, remote and above all empty.
Sample 2     He remembered much of his stay in the womb.  While there, he began to be aware of sounds and tastes . . . Yet he was not afraid.  The changes were right.  It was time for them.  His body was ready.  Octavia Butler Adulthood Rites
Imitation:     She planned most of her day in the morning.  At home, she recognized familiar sounds and smells.  Yet she was not at home.  The feeling was all wrong.  The time was not ripe.  She was not ready.
Your Try:   He removed most of the debris. While there he realized familiar sounds and smells. Yet he was at a new location. The surrounding appeared all right. This time it was recognizable. The time was right. He was not ready.
Analysis: Butler composed a string of plain simple sentences to convey the impressions felt by a sensitive young child.  Strings of simple sentences can also convey other ethical effects, such as intense concentration.
Some Simple Sentences to Imitate: A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests.  Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly
The Antillean refugee Jeremiah de Saint-Amour, disabled war veteran, photographer of children, and his most sympathetic opponent in chess, had escaped the torments of memory with the aromatic fumes of gold cyanide.   Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the Time of Cholera
Out of the back of the truck the city of San Francisco is bouncing down the hill, all those endless staggers of bay windows, slums with a view, bouncing and streaming down the hill.  Tom Wolfe, "Black Shiny FBI shoes."
Your Try:   The enigmatic businesss owner Jerome Chambers, decorated leader, innovator and his most loyal employee, had received awards after collaborating for an invention.
Out of the sleepy small town, in the mining was a trail down towards the small hill, all those abandoned mines, rusty machinery pieces, littering and rolling all way down the hill.
Complex Sentence: John loves Mary even though she reads Milton.
In a complex sentence, one or more dependent colons are attached to one or more independent colons.  A colon is dependent if it doesn't make sense by itself; it depends on another colon to make it complete.
Sample 1 Writing, reading, thinking, imagining, speculating.  These are luxury activities, so I am reminded, permitted to a privileged few, whose idle hours of the day can be viewed otherwise than as a bowl of rice or a loaf of bread less to share with the family.     --Trinh T. Minh-ha, "Commitment from the Mir...