 Describing Landscapes

1. The wind in the grass, the big slate sky over the dunes, the house infested with
mice and falling down, full of candles and dirt and music.
2. I go out by the back door, into the garden, which is large and tidy: a lawn in
the middle, a willow, weeping catkins; around the edges, the flower borders, in
which the daffodils are now fading and the tulips are opening their cups,
spilling out colours. The tulips are red, a darker crimson towards the stem, as
if they had been cut and are beginning to heal there.
3. It’s started to rain, a drizzle, and the gravid smell of earth and grass fills the
air.
4. The enormous room on the ground floor faced towards the north. Cold for all
the summer beyond the panes, for all the tropical heat of the room itself, a
harsh thin light glared through the windows, hungrily seeking some draped lay
figure, some pallid shape of academic goose-flesh, but finding only the glass
and nickel and bleakly shining porcelain of a laboratory.
5. The smell of sweet confectioneries wafted past my nose, quickly followed by
the greasy touch of smoking bacon making me queasy in the summer heat.
6. When I walk these blocks, I see the bright flowers in wonderfully well-tended
window boxes and the stunning murals painted across rooftop water towers. I
hear the rhythmic clatter of elevated trains and excited shouts of kids at food
all practice in the schoolyard. these streets are suffused with beauty that’s
visible when you slow down, look in the right places, and listen for the right
sounds.

 Describing Sky
1. The sky is like a monochromatic contemporary painting, drawing me in with
its illusion of depth, pulling me up.
2. The sky is clear but hard to make out, because of the searchlight; but yes, in
the obscured sky a moon does float, newly, a wishing moon, a sliver of ancient
rock, a goddess, a wink. The moon is a stone and the sky is full of deadly
hardware, but oh God, how beautiful anyway.
3. Night falls. Or has fallen. Why is it that night falls, instead of rising, like the
dawn? Yet if you look east, at sunset, you can see night rising, not falling;
darkness lifting into the sky, up from the horizon, like a black sun behind
cloud cover. Like smoke from an unseen fire, a line of fire just below the
horizon, brushfire or a burning city. Maybe night falls because it’s heavy, a
thick curtain pulled up over the eyes. Wool blanket.
4. Night has fallen, then. I feel it pressing down on me like a stone. No breeze. I
sit by the partly open window, curtains tucked back because there’s no one out
there, no need for modesty, in my nightgown, long-sleeved even in summer, to
keep us from the temptations of our own flesh, to keep us from hugging
ourselves, bare-armed. Nothing moves in the searchlight moonlight. The scent
from the garden rises like heat from a body, there must be night-blooming
flowers, it’s so strong. I can almost see it, red radiation, wavering upwards like
the shimmer above highway tarmac at noon.
5. The heat is building. It’s barely half-past eight and already the day is close, the
air heavy with moisture. I could wish for a storm, but the sky is an insolent
 blank, pale, watery blue. I wipe away the sweat on my top lip. I wish I’d
remembered to buy a bottle of water.
6. The first golden ray of sunlight broke through the horizon, illuminating the
tranquil sea and warming the pearly water droplets with its kiss.
7. The sun, hidden behind fluffy clouds, radiated its luminescence onto towering
skyscrapers. The sunlight bounced off the pristine glass panes of commercial
office buildings, blinding onlookers.
8. The storm was now a whirling body of clouds and sand with sharp streaks of
lightning cutting through the centre, It glowed eerily from inside a thunder
roared across the wave. It was time to leave.
9. Soon, the sun sank into submission under the brewing storm; the sky, a hazy
background of sand and leaves.

 Describing Emotions
1. I want to say something to him, but the words keep evaporating, vanishing off
my tongue before I have the chance to say them. I can taste them, but I can’t
tell if they are sweet or sour.
2. Something is wrong. For a second, I feel as though I’m falling, as though the
bed has disappeared from beneath my body. Last night. Something happened.
The breath comes sharply into my lungs and I sit up, too quickly, heart racing,
head throbbing. I wait for the memory to come. Sometimes it takes a while.
Sometimes it’s there in front of my eyes in seconds. Sometimes it doesn’t
come at all. Something happened, something bad.
3. It comes over me like a wave: black dread. Something happened, I know it
did. I can’t picture it, but I can feel it. The inside of my mouth hurts, as though
I’ve bitten my cheek, there’s a metallic tang of blood on my tongue. I feel
nauseated, dizzy. I run my hands through my hair, over my scalp. I flinch.
There’s a lump, painful and tender, on the right side of my head. My hair is
matted with blood.
4. his big brown eyes lock on mine
5. Two lines led downwards from the corners of her mouth; between them was
her chin, clenched like a fist.
6. Not so her eyes, which were the flat hostile blue of a midsummer sky in bright
sunlight, a blue that shuts you out.
7. The tension between her lack of control and her attempt to suppress it is
horrible. It’s like a fart in church. I feel, as always, the urge to laugh, but not
because I think it’s funny. The smell of her crying spreads over us and we
pretend to ignore it.
8. In the dark parlour, we move away from each other, slowly, as if pulled
towards each other by a force, current, pulled apart also by hands equally
strong.
9. How long have we been here? Minutes or hours. I’m sweating now, my dress
under my arms is drenched, I taste salt on my upper lip, the false pains clench
at me, the others feel it too, I can tell by the way they sway.
10. It’s all very well for me to think these things, quick as staccato, a jittering of
the brain.
11. It was like being in an elevator cut loose at the top. Falling, falling, and not
knowing when you will hit.
 12. Staring at the wilderness, thriving in a wide expanse and surrounding me, free
from the malicious thoughts of humans.
13. A lull in the storm brought nervous giggles from the middle of the assembled
school. The rain cloud burst.
14. I felt my gorge rise and had to fight the impulse to throw up. A putrid
combination of rotten organic matter and unwashed clothes, as if he’d been
sleeping in a waste container for weeks, which he might well have been – it
was all I could do to hold him at arm’s length.
15. I’m unfortunately seated near a window, but it’s mercifully dark.
16. Nausea and nerves gnaw at my stomach. Fear commands attention

 Sensory Description / Imagery

1. My coffee is cold on the table, but I’m too deliciously warm and lazy to bother
getting up to make myself another cup.
2. Sunlight comes in through the window too, and falls on the floor, which is
made of wood, in narrow strips, highly polished. I can smell the polish.
3. I hear the siren, at a great distance at first, winding its way towards me among
the large houses and clipped lawns, a thin sound like the hum of an insect;
then nearing, opening out, like a flower of sound opening, into a trumpet.
4. A glimpse, a pale shimmer on the air; a glow, aurora, dance of electrons, then
a face again, faces.
5. I feel the air on my almost bare skin, and realize I’ve been sweating.
6. The smell of sweet confectioneries wafted past my nose, quickly followed by
the greasy touch of smoking bacon making me queasy in the summer heat.
7. When I came to the edge of the gorge, it felt as if my whole body had been
dipped in liquid nitrogen. The wind at my legs and hair, taunting me, wanting
me to fall, Closing my eyes, I counted five and stepped forward.
8. If I had let go of his wizened arm, he would have collapsed to the ground into
a discarded heap, a disintegrated carcass. There wasn’t much more to him than
gaunt, sallow skin and bones – a deflated membrane of a human.
9. Memories of that summer’s road trip came flooding back; the midnight swim,
his friend’s guitar, and the feeling of infinite freedom that came with each tank
of gas.
10. Thanksgiving unleashes my animal instincts. I resemble a ravenous hyena
devouring my prey of turkey and stuffing.
11. Treading water, we laughed with disbelief as the ocean moved around us with
a soothing glittering sheen.

 Describing Actions
1. I can hear the train coming; I know its rhythm by heart. It picks up speed as it
accelerates out of Northcote station and then, after rattling round the bend, it
starts to slow down, from a rattle to a rumble, and then sometimes a screech of
brakes as it stops at the signal a couple of hundred yards from the house.
2. Sometimes I can hear her pacing back and forth, a heavy step and then a light
one, and the soft tap of her cane on the dusty-rose carpet.
3. Hordes of people walked past in a flurry, like a time-lapse, the noise gradually
amplifying as shops opened and customers rushed in.
4. The head exploded within an infinitesimal fraction of a second with a garish
display of intense colours. The smell of gunpowder dispersed though the area,
reminding me of war stories my grandpa told me as a kid. A dispersing stream
of smoke-choked the ones too close as they breathed in lung-burning
chemicals whilst trying to cheer through tear-filled eyes.
5. I’m alert to the rustling of footsteps, ready to pounce if a brazen soul attempts
to plunder the leftover treasures in the refrigerator.