Writing with Stardust: The Ultimate Descriptive Guide for students, parents, teachers and writers (27 page)

1. The cold, steel-blue waves created a gentle
sea-song
.

2. The
soft symphony
of the sea was caused by the icy, Prussian-blue waves.

3. The slobbering waves were a chilling, Siberian-blue and created the
sand-song
.

4. The
wave
-
hum
was caused by the gentle roll of the alpine-blue sea.

5. The
wave-music
was caused by the salty tongue of the glacier-blue sea.

                                                     
ANGRY SEAS

1. The
wild
sea was bashing the rocks.

2. The
savage
sea was smashing the cliffs.

3. The
barbarous
sea was buffeting the stoic coast.

4. The
feral
sea was spewing its bruised-blue spite against the adamant rock.

5. The
feckless
sea was walloping its brutal waves against the obdurate cliffs.

                                      
LEVEL 1: BASIC SENTENCES

1. The sky was
raven-black
.
COLOUR

2. It made a
clanging and clanking
noise.
SOUND

3. It was
churning
with anger.
SHAPE

4. The thunder
detonated
in the sky.
ACTION

5.
Star blaze-gold lightning
flashed briefly.
COLOUR

6. It was
whipping
with violence.
SOUND

7. Its shape was
forked
.
SHAPE

8. It was
purring
with energy.
ACTION

9. It hit the
cold, wintry-blue sea
.
COLD SEAS

10. The sea began
battering
the rocks.
ANGRY SEAS

                                         LEVEL 2: A BASIC PARAGRAPH

The sky was
cowl-black
. Thunder was
cracking and crashing
above our heads. The sky seemed
rumpled
as the clouds were deep and in different shades. Thunder
rang
out across the sky.
Luminous-gold
lightning flared once. It was
wriggling
towards the earth. It was
veined
and branched out. It began
humming
in a terrifying way. It blazed onto the
icy,
polar-blue
sea. The angry sea began
smacking
the cliffs.

                                        LEVEL 3: ADVANCED PARAGRAPHS

The gloomy sky was
as black as the devil’s heart
. It was
grumbling and rumbling
with thunder like the stomachs of the Gods. The sky was
stirring
itself into frenzy, with pockets of grey and black clouds colliding. It pealed and yowled with bursts of brute force, making
discordant
noises all the while. The riotous sky was suddenly illuminated with
gamboge-gold
streaks. Lightning flared and
contorted
in forks of gold. It
screeched
and scorched towards the sea,
writhing
with pain.

The sea had been placid until then. It was
arctic-blue
and corpse-cold
. Then the lightning slashed down and the sea began to boil. Its underbelly heaved up, causing huge waves to rise and crash down upon each other. They lurched across the sea in a mighty heap, dragging their foamy swells with them. Billowing and surging, the breakers cascaded towards the land. Enraged, they
bludgeoned
the cliffs with all their might, crashing into the stony walls. Unmoved, the cliffs stared back contemptuously. Then, when the sea had spent itself, they returned to their age-old dignity.

                                        
LEVEL 4: USING THE FORMULA                                           

Each sentence contains the
shape,
the
sky
, the
sound,
the
colour,
the
brightness
and a
simile.

1
Antlered lightning
blazed in the
boiling,
autumn sky. It
buzzed
in its
beeswax-gold
splendour. The
brilliant lightning
was like a
cat-o'-nine tails.

2
Bifurcated lightning
electrified the
buckling,
autumn sky. It
crackled
in its
foil-gold
intensity. The
lambent lightning
was
as bright as the crawling cracks on stained glass.

3 Branched lightning
flamed in the
cacophonous,
autumn sky. It fizzed with its
fulvous-gold
ardour. The
radiant lightning
was
as vitrified as the creeping ice-cracks on a frozen pond.

4 Contorted lightning
flared under the
churning,
autumn sky. It
fizzled
with
gamboge-gold
streaks. The
resplendent lightning
was shaped
like crippled capillaries.

5 Crooked lightning
flashed under the
crumpling,
autumn sky. It
hissed
its
gaslight-gold
hatred
.
The
scintillating lightning
was
like electrified frizzy hair.

6 Dendriform-shaped lightning
slashed through the
moiling
sky. It
scorched
through it with its
glitter-gold
lasers. The
alien lightning
was
like misshapen plasma-streams.

7 Forked lightning
streaked across the
roiling
sky. It
seared
through it with its
globe-gold
wrath
.
The
arcane lightning
was
like the ruinous cracks on crumbling mortar.

8 Pronged lightning
wriggled in the
schizophrenic sky.
It
sizzled
through it with its
God-goldened
glory. The
otherworldly lightning
was shaped like
spread-eagled solar-rivers.

9 Splayed lightning
writhed in the
thunderous,
autumn sky. It
skewered
through it with its
halo-gold
spreading branches. The
sorcerous lightning
was shaped
like twisted limbs.

10
Veined lightning
zigzagged through the
weeping
sky. It
zoomed
to earth with its
star blaze-gold
branches. The
unearthly lightning
was shaped
like a witch's, warped whip.

                LEVEL 4: COMPLEX WRITING: SAMPLE PARAGRAPH

I ran towards the mighty oak, the only shelter in the field. Above me, something strange was happening. The nitrous-blue sky of a moment ago was morphing into something much more sinister. The clouds began to churn. Boiling and roiling like a vortex of hatred, they paused, coalesced and finally fused into a vast thundercloud of pagan-black. The land became tomb-still. The vaporous water-fountain loomed ominously overhead. A shroud of eerie silence descended. Nothing moved. Nothing stirred. Nothing dared to breathe. All at once, the first splatters of rain fell and the sound of a sonic boom rent the hushed peace. Thunder rumbled, a clangorous clap of fury like heavens anvil being rung with rage. A sudden flash seemed to stun the cracked sky. A gash of liquid light appeared from the breach above, a lesion in its seething surface. The sky still steamed like a witch’s cauldron as pronged lightning spit and hissed like sizzling pulsar-whips. It looked like an upturned version of Neptune's fiery fork. An electrostatic crackling, natures nylon-shock, charged the atmosphere. It buzzed, cackled and fizzed with furious intensity. Splayed tentacles of glitter-gold blasted forth. I desperately increased my pace, fearing that I would be zapped. An explosion of lightning-flame emblazoned the Stygian sky, scarring its darkness. It writhed in its fleeting agony before illuminating into sorcerous sheet-lightning. It skewered through the sky and a single vein arrowed towards the oak tree. It squeaked once in terror before rupturing, fracturing and finally splintering. With a resounding crack, the once-mighty oak fell into two pieces, its heart tasered out. The lightning’s fury and scintillating brilliance spent, it flared once more, fizzled fatally and faded. It left behind a stricken oak tree and a grateful survivor.

              
LEVEL 5: COMPLEX WRITING: THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

The autumn sky was as bright as Zeus’ eyes. Nary a cloud blemished its bliss-blue complexion and the sun was like a glowing medallion pinned to a sheet of white paper. I ambled through the meadow, enjoying its peaceful air and the way it seemed to stretch into eternity. The grass was fairyland-green and the gentle swish of the blades, swaying to and fro, was hypnotic. It was like autumn’s dreamscape.

In the centre of this large vale, quite some distance away, was a wizened oak tree. Its gnarled and hoary girth lay under a tangled old man’s beard of leaf and bough. In a far-away field, stilt-legged lambs gambolled and frolicked with each other in merry innocence. The mountains in the distance loomed into the sky with a heaven-kissing majesty, silent and stern. Nothing disturbed my peace. It was merely the oak and I, just like in the storybooks. The sweep of sky, the lack of sigh, made me feel like I was walking through the finespun masterstrokes of a Michelangelo painting. I decided to rest my weary head for a while and let the spiritual beauty of this Jerusalem of nature seep into me further. Resting my head on my knapsack, I drifted away into infinity, letting the locked-away memories of joyful times steal into my dreams. A drowsy smile played on my lips and I floated into slumberland.

When I woke up, the sky was as black as the devil’s soul. The clouds were damnation-black and glared down balefully at me. Like a tightening noose, the sky seemed to be coiling in on itself, purring with a suppressed rage. A distant rumbling, much like the sound of an avalanche, echoed in the air. The world became cellar-dark and the buckling, heaving sky looked fit to collapse down on top of me. Then there was an explosion like a sonic boom and I feared for my safety. Doom-black clouds, pregnant with malice, churned and roiled. They looked as vaporous as mist and as fleecy as black wool.

Then the rain came. It wasn’t the nectar-of-the-gods type rain beloved of all those wandering adventurers lost in the desert. It was icy, stinging nails of rain that seemed to strip my skin and shrink my soul. Then the hailstone came. They were bone-white and as big as baseballs. They bombarded me with their spite and I had to put my rucksack above my head. Hobson ’s choice was facing me. I could die on my knees out in the meadow or risk the lightning under the leafy womb of the oak tree. Mussolini’s famous quote came to me unbidden as I pondered my options. “Better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep”. I decided to be a lion. I ran. It occurred to me as I ran that he might have retracted that one (just before they hung him and his mistress upside down from a girder in the Piazzale Loreto in Milan).