Writing with Stardust: The Ultimate Descriptive Guide for students, parents, teachers and writers (38 page)

You could be more creative and try using ghostly silvers for an eerie scene or others even more creative. Here are some examples:

1. ghostly-silver or dewgleam-silver

2. phantom-silver or diamond-flame silver

3. spectre-silver or hoarfrost-silver

4. spooky-silver or solar-silver

5. wraith-silver or sequin-silver

The best 5
reflective
verbs for the moon are:

Then it is just a simple case of using creative
metaphors for the moonbeams
. Here are 5 of the best:

1. chords of moonlight

2. harpstrings of moonlight

3. ribbons of moonlight

4. strands of moonlight

5. tendrils of moonlight

The final stage of the process is to use
similes
that contain these words or similar words. It is important to note that, as always, this process is only a
guide to developing an ‘artist’s eye’.
I don’t claim to know it all by any means. However, the hints given should inspire the readers to think about their own creativity and attempt to better the sentences below. Underneath are some nice expressions for a sea-moon using the formula.

1. The moon was like a ghostly-silver orb in the sky. Its beams spilled across the sea
like lines of glittering
fire
. It was an alluring scene.

2. The moon was like a phantom-silver disc in the sky. Chords of moonlight lasered across the sea
like lines of glimmering fire
. It was a captivating scene.

3. The moon was like a spectre-silver halo in the sky. Ribbons of light rebounded off the mirrored surface of the sea
like silver tracers of fire
. It was soul-enriching.

4. The moon was like a spook-silver ring in the sky. Its ghostly light shimmered on the water, silvering the sea
like rippling aluminium
. It was an entrancing sight.

5.
The moon was like a wraith-silver salver hanging in the lonely sky. Tendrils of moonlight, as bright as diamond-flame, turned the sea a-glow
like melted platinum
. It was as if I was watching a scene from an old fable stepping off the page and I was beguiled by its beauty. The Chinese called the May moon the dragon moon and I could see why. The waves were a-glitter like curved scales and I became lost in the haunting lullaby of their swell and sigh.

                             
DESCRIBING THE STARS

For the stars, you should again focus on four main aspects: the
colour
, the
reflection
, the
shape
and using an effective
simile
. This comes back to the concept of looking at the world with an ‘artist’s eye’.

A child loves the way the stars are twinkling like little pulses of light. They also love drawing stars as there is symmetry to the five sides that other shapes don’t have. As well as this, it is the first shape they will draw which gives them a sense of achievement because of its complexity. If you think of it, a square, circle or triangle is relatively easy. Drawing a star, however, exercises parts of the brain that haven’t been used before. Starting at the bottom left, they have to go up, down, up and across, across, then down and across. I often wonder how many teachers actually show them how to do this. I’m pretty certain that it would save a child a lot of time were they to be shown how to trace a star properly from first day. If not, then a lot of stars would have to be drawn in ignorance before achieving success.

These posts I’m uploading hope to achieve the same. Make your students
think of the different components
that make up descriptive writing. Whether it be the branch of a tree that is compared to a similar shape or the texture of flowers, nearly everything in nature has a colour, shape, action (or inaction, like a womb-still lake) and sensation/smell associated with it. Every English student should be able to grasp that essential fact. It then makes it so much easier to evoke a sensory piece of descriptive writing for the reader. If they are not taught that, they may end up like the child trying to draw a star while other children in the class are moving on to complex octagons.

5 different colours for the stars
:

The reflection of the stars:

The stars are similar in shape to:

5
creative similes for the stars. The stars looked:

1. …like scattered moondust in the sky.

2. …like a large hand had tossed diamond dust into the sky.

3. …like beacons of hope for all the lost souls of the world.

4. … like bejewelled grains of sand allowed to sparkle in silence.

5. …like the glittering sparks from angelfire.

The final step is to pick out which words and phrases you like the best and put them together into a sentence. Also try to pick a remote location for your setting where the stars would be most vividly seen. We will give you an example using the ocean. You are lost at sea. Are the stars comforting and a sign of hope or are they making you pine for civilisation? Are they the streetlamps of nature or are they a flashing reminder of your own fleeting mortality? The story is up to you, but by using our formulas you should come up with something like this:

The waves glopped and slashed off the wooden raft. Then the full moon came out and the wave-motion died down. It was an eerie, spectre-silver moon. Its ghostly lustre sent beams of argent-silver spilling across the sea. The wraith-like light flooded the sea, making it glow like silvered mercury.

Stars winked at me from the endless arch of void-black beyond the moon’s corona. In places they were birthstone-blue and beautiful, all a-glitter in their heavenly finery. The ones furthest away, almost outside the span of human comprehension, were like flashing pinpricks in a veil of darkness. They had a faint, silver tint and they looked like they were the distant, glittering sparks from angel fire. All of them were beacons of hope for all the lost souls of the world, or so I thought. It seemed to me that there was a snowfall sparkling in outer space and I felt privileged to witness it.

A QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE

SPRING

      FIELD                  SOFT                FLOWERY           SPIRITUAL        HEAVENLY                                                                                                            

  COLOURS           SOUNDS              SMELLS             SENSATIONS
      
TASTES

SPRING

MEADOW              SOFT                  SUGARY         SPIRITUAL            TASTE

COLOURS           SOUNDS                 SMELLS         SENSATIONS     ADJECTIVES

SPRING

HEAVENLY              SOFT                SWEET              PHYSICAL              TASTE

VALLEYS               SOUNDS             SMELLS            SENSATIONS       ADJECTIVES