Writing with Stardust: The Ultimate Descriptive Guide for students, parents, teachers and writers (13 page)

In the distance, the world’s greatest sound is coming out of hibernation. It is the mellifluous hum of a distant lawnmower, signalling that the land is warm again. Its distant drone is a sort of surrogate wind music, flowing into winter-battered ears. Whittling and shearing the grass to perfection, it provides symmetry to winter’s jumble sale of chaos. The air smells like baked sugar cakes after the grass is shorn. Snowmelt makes the rivers pulse like wondrous veins. They surge to collect winter’s clutter, rumbling through rocky channels.

Thumb-plump bumblebees, wings a-thrum, loot from honeypots of mustard-yellow flowers. They sound like mini tumble dryers, plunging syringe-like to extract their booty. Nickering foals prance and cavort in carnival-green fields. The pumping heart of nature is beating again.

Spring is nature’s defibrillator, a high voltage pacemaker that jump starts life into the land. It throbs and thumps to its own high octane rhythm and composes its own symphony of sound. It has a life, a fragrance and a lilting synergy unique to itself. If it were a perfume, it would be called eau-de-Glee.                                               

*
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                                  ALLITERATION

Alliteration occurs when words start with the same sound
. This is usually taken as consonant sounds in modern literature, but it includes vowel sounds also. It is important to note that the letters do not need to be the same at the start of the word; it is the sound that is important. Alliteration is one of the main literary devices employed by writers and poets to make a sentence or phrase more memorable. That is why it is a mnemonic device. A mnemonic device, to use a metaphor for it, is a
‘mental hook’
for
the
reader.

Teaching students how to understand and use alliteration in their writing is always interesting. The best way of approaching the issue is to ask them to recite a nursery rhyme. It truly is astonishing how many of us can recite nursery rhymes, some of which are centuries old. Why are nursery rhymes so easy to recite and remember? The answer is that they are a pulsating, throbbing, vibrant mnemonic device. They all share the same qualities of alliteration, repetition, assonance, onomatopoeia and end rhyme. For example, ‘
R
ing-a –
r
ing o’
R
oses’ and ‘
B
aa,
b
aa,
b
lack sheep’ are both thought to date to the eighteenth century in written form, but were almost certainly constructed at least three hundred years earlier. So how did they survive in oral form only for those two hundred years?

It is significant that the opening sentences are alliterative as this would appeal to a child. Using alliteration in a writing composition has the same effect. When a reader comes across a ‘catchy’ sentence, it tends to linger in the memory instead of fading. By using alliteration, a student is adding to the armoury of devices he has at his disposal. It should always be encouraged, but there is a word of caution attached to its use. It should never be over used as this can make the passage of writing seem too contrived and cumbersome to read. Two or three examples per passage of writing are fine. Underneath are some examples of alliteration.

1. The
c
hoir of birds looked
k
ingly and
k
ind.

2. I
d
rank
d
eep from the stream and it was
d
elightful.

3. The
s
weet
s
cent was a merely a
s
ilent
s
uspicion in the air.

4. The
c
rows were
c
awing in their
c
ruel and
c
unning voices.

5. The
b
each was
b
irthstone-
b
irth and the sand gleamed like
b
ejewelled dust.

                            
SUMMER

                                                     COLOUR

LEVEL 1         LEVEL 2         LEVEL 3         LEVEL 4         LEVEL 5           OTHERS

1. The
close of day
brings plum-purple skies.

2. The summer
dusk
brings mulberry-purple skies.

3. The summer
twilight
brings glorious, magenta-purple skies.

4. The
gloaming
of the night gathers up the orpine-purple skies.

5. The
crepuscular
light heralds the onset of the monarchy-purple skies.

                                                   
BEE MUSIC

1. The buzzing bees sound like
electric shavers
.

2. The droning bees sound like dozy
lawn mowers
.

3. The mumbling of bees sounds like
buzz saws
cranking up.

4. The orinasal murmuration of bees sounds like
hairdryers
flying in the sky.

5. The monk-hum of plump, banded bees is like the start of a
Formula One
race.

                                         METAPHORS FOR THE SUN

1. The sun is a dazzling circle of gold in the
sweep of sky
.

2. The sun is a flashing fireball of magma-red in the
large expanse
of sky.

3. The sun is a glittering eye of luminous-gold in the
great spread
of sky.

4. The sun is a flaming wheel of saffron-orange in the
vast scope
of sky.

5. The sun is a fiery ring of lava-red in the
vast span
of sky.

                                                THE DAWN CHORUS

1. The beaked concert came from the
pop stars
of the trees.

2. The feathered melody came from the
musicians
of the trees.

3. The avian aria came from the
carollers
of the trees.

4. A quavering orchestra came from the
minstrels
of the trees.

5. A winged symphony erupted from the
troubadours
of the trees.

                                                     
EDIBLE FOODS

1. Wild thyme forms a
blanket
in the forest.

2. Shaggy ink cap forms a rich
carpet
on grassy verges.

3. Black mustard adds to the colourful
duvet
of colour.

4. Sweet violet litters the mossy
mattress
of the forest.

5. Parasol mushrooms seem woven into the floral
quilt
of floor.

                                                
THE SWEEP OF SKY

1. The clouds seem
bolted
to the endless sky.

2. The clouds seem
yoked
to the infinite sky.

3. The flimsy clouds seem
riveted
to the everlasting skies.

4. The fleecy clouds seem
shackled
to the measureless skies of summer.

5. The tufty clouds seem
manacled
to the limitless skies of summer.

                                             
THE BRIGHEST BLUES

1. The sky becomes a
dome
of chemical-blue.

2. The sky becomes a
shrine
of brochure-blue.

3. The sky transforms into a
temple
of electric-blue.

4. The summer sky morphs into a
cathedral
of plasma-blue.