Writing with Stardust: The Ultimate Descriptive Guide for students, parents, teachers and writers (17 page)

                              
WINTER

                                
SNOW
COLOUR

LEVEL 1         LEVEL 2         LEVEL 3         LEVEL 4         LEVEL 5           OTHERS

1. The bleach-white snow didn’t stop
whiskey-nosed Santa
from coming.

2. The arctic-white snow didn’t delay
chipmunk-cheeked Santa
one bit. 

3. The vampire-white snow didn’t halt the passage of
swag-bellied Santa
.

4. The quicklime-white snow didn’t impede the progress of
cherub-cheeked Santa
.

5. The whey-white snow sky didn’t make
Methuselah-bearded Santa
falter one jot.

                                                           SOUND

1. The storms were blasting outside as the fire inside
flooded my face with heat
.

2. The thunderstorms were flaying the trees outside as the fire
saturated my face with heat
.

3. The rainstorms were lashing the land outside as the fire
engulfed my face with heat
.

4. Razing windstorms scoured the land while the glowing fire
steeped the room in heat
.

5. Sundering cyclones buffeted the land as I let the fire’s heat
immerse my face in warmth
.

                            STORMS USING PATHETIC FALLACY

1. Screaming winds passed over the house as our Christmas
sparklers spat and fizzed
.

2. Snarling winds raged outside as
wall shadows danced to the fire’s flame
.

3. The wailing winds outside didn’t stop our
window candles winking at the neighbours
.

4. The mewling winds couldn’t stop our
magnesium-bright angel glittering atop the tree
.

5. The keening winds made the
blazing jig of the fire dance all the merrier
.

                               
SILENCE

1. The
crackers popped and exploded
as a quiet peace cloaked the land outside.

2. A death-like silence draped the land as our
crackers snapped and burst
.

3. An awful shush garbed the shrouded the land as our
kettle hissed and whined
.

4. An eerie tranquillity sheathed the world outside as our
glasses clinked and pinged
.

5. A shocking quiescence garbed the world outside as our
champagne flutes tinkled and pinged
.

                                                  SKY COLOUR

1. The grit-grey skies looked down as the
kettle bubbled and boiled
.

2. The cinder-grey skies gazed down as the
fire cackled and crackled
.

3. The lead-grey skies stared silently outside as the
fire’s flames licked the hearth
.

4. The manacle-grey sky brooding outside didn’t stop us
chortling and chuckling
with joy
.

5.
Laughter was ringing and resonating
through the house, defying the fetter-grey sky outside.

                              
BARREN SKIES

1. The
fire baptised us in heat
as the lonely sky outside hung sadly.

2. The
fire felt like warm butter melting on our faces
as the bitter sky outside wept.

3. The
fire felt like a sunset glow on our faces
as the haunting skies remained melancholy.

4. The blanched skies looked lachrymose as the
fire’s heat pulsed with waves of warmth
like an oven
.

5. The cadaverous sky seemed lugubrious as the
fire’s warmth washed over us like the wafts from a volcano vent
.

                                                  CHOKING WINTER

1. Winter choked the land as
a pale, winter’s
moon
hung in the sky.

2. Winter strangled the land as
a pearly moon
filled the sky.

3. The pitiless winter suffocated the land as
an opalescent moon
framed the sky.

4. The vengeful winter throttled the land as
the nacreous moon
seemed to flood the land with its pallid light.

4. The vindictive winter garrotted the land as
the phosphorescent brilliance of the moon
illuminated the sky.

                                                           SMELL

1. The smell of spiced beef filled the room as
forks of flame
chased the shadows away.

2. The plummy scent of mulled wine filled the room as
feathers of flame
made the sparks sizzle.

3. Exotic stove smells flooded the room as
ribbons of flame
danced happily in the grate.

4. Sulphurous crackers snapped and burst as
quiffs of flame
made the sound of a billowing sheet.

5. Myrrh-scented candles flickered quietly as
tongues of flame
licked the hearth.

                                                  
SENSATION

1. Our bodies shivered as
the radiant light
of the fire warmed us up.

2. Our stiff limbs defrosted as
the lambent light
of the fire heated us up.

3. Our tingling fingertips stretched closer as
the fulgent light
of the fire gave us cheer.

4. Our brandy-noses snuffled as the
refulgent light
of the fire doused us with its light.

5. Our chilblained feet tingled and nipped as
the effulgent light
of the fire hypnotised us and turned us all into fire gazers.

                                   
TASTE

1. The buttery potatoes went down well as the Christmas presents were
a-shine
in the corner.

2. The tea tannins felt wholesome as the Christmas ornaments were
a-dazzle
all around us.

3. The sparkling champagne tasted divine and the glasses were
a-glitter
from the fire.

4. The gamy goose was packed with herbs and spices. It steamed quietly as the decorations were
a-flash
all around the room.

5. The joy of Christmas seemed to have been poured into the thyme-filled turkey. It tasted heavenly as glasses clinked, laughter rang out and the candles were
a-flicker
with delight.

                                       
LEVEL 1: BASIC SENTENCES

1. The snow was
whalebone-white
.
SNOW
COLOUR

2. The
battering
gusts were awful.
SOUND

3. The
screeching
winds were dreadful.
STORMS

4. A
gentle hush
cloaked the land.
SILENCE

5. The
gravel-grey
skies were bare.
SKY
COLOUR

6. The
empty
skies were silent.
BARREN SKIES

7. Winter
squeezes
everything to death.
CHOKING WINTER

8.
Peppery scents
filled the room.
SMELL

9. Our
quivering bodies
were cold.
SENSATION

10. The
seasoned
vegetables were delicious.
TASTE

                                       LEVEL 2: A BASIC PARAGRAPH

The snow was
polar-white
. The
flogging squalls
of winter blew loudly.
Screeching winds
occasionally rose up. When they died, a
tomb-like silence
haunted the land.
Flint-grey skies
oversaw the land. The
bleak skies
were depressing. Winter
smothered the land
with its vice-like grip.
Malt liqueurs
, taken to warm up chilled bodies, were a poor substitute for the sun.
Sore joints
creaked and groaned like rusty hinges. The scent of
creamy, mushroom vol
-
au-vents
floating through the house cheered us up.

                                       
LEVEL 3: CREATIVE PARAGRAPHS

The snow was
zombie-white
. Winter’s
lacerating hurricanes
and
whining winds
had come and gone, leaving a
terrible calmness
. The skies above were an unholy mixture of
shale-grey
clouds and
pasty
streaks. Callous winter was
stifling
the world with its icy breath.

I could see a group of kidults playing on a frozen pond. They stamped their frozen feet and thumped their chilly bodies to warm up. Their ears caught fire and turned an icy-blue where their scarves couldn’t reach. Nose-icicles dripped from their frozen faces. Their wheezy, wind-filled lungs were belching out steam as they itched and scratched at their raw skin. They started skating. They slipped, slid and slithered on the polished ice. Hissing and swishing with their skates, they swooped and whooped across the ice. Then they screamed as the ice broke. It must have felt like lances of fire lighting up their skin as they fell in to the perishing cold water.

Their teeth were chattering when they crawled back out. They followed the
oaken oven smells
home to warm up. I hoped that the
yeasty beer
would warm their hearts as their bodies were frozen.

                                      LEVEL 4: ADVANCED PARAGRAPHS               

I stared into the fire. It crackled and spat before hissing into life. Its lambent light stole away the velvet-black shadows dancing on the wall. Flames of rainbow-orange licked hungrily at the chimney as they clambered as higher and higher. The fire’s hypnotic jig of joy was as much a celebration as ours. It wanted to be alive on Christmas Day also. A pageant of smells filled the house. Thyme-filled turkeys sizzled on the oven foil. They battled to take over from the lavender-scented candles and the sulfurous smell of crackers. I could hear them snapping and exploding in another room. The scrumptious smell of goose grease wafted into the room, sifting out the other smells. The children had been up early, hoping that the greatest illusionist of them all had visited.

Swag-bellied Santa used sleigh-in-hand rather than sleight-of-hand, but his brand of escapism beat Houdini every time. This jolly, whiskey-nosed character has conjured up more delight from souls than the rest of humanity combined. His marmot-cheeked magic is indeed a joy to the world. I heard the welcome sound of the kettle boiling. It was bubbling and hissing in the background. Warmth flooded the room as the fire came alive. The sound of chuckling and chortling floated to my ears. The Christmas tree flashed and flickered with its dazzling lights. An angel was perched on the top, glittering with its flash-silver lustre. A single candle twinkled merrily in the window. The jingling of the dinner bell rang. It’s the greatest sound that winter could offer. I sighed with happiness and followed the smells and laughter to my chair.

                 LEVEL 5: COMPLEX WRITING: WINTER WONDERLAND

My boots crunched through the powdered snow. They detonated like Christmas crackers every time my feet hit the ground. The world around me was imprisoned in a glair-white silence. Nothing sounded, nothing stirred, nothing sang. Winters slavering fangs had come and gone. Its lacerating winds had stripped the last leaves from the trees, leaving them naked and brooding in a harsh world. They were wrapped in their surgical coats now, groaning under the weight of the snow. Occasionally, a great limb would creak, crack and collapse. It sounded like an explosion going through the forest. Other than that, an alien serenity garbed the forest. There was no dawn chorus, no symphony of sound, no avian orchestra. The world was entombed in a dome of silence. Winter’s deadly clutch had strangled and stifled all life from the land.

A week ago, a great storm had come screeching through. It had snarled and mewled with its deadly voice, sounding like a wailing spectre. It had ripped slates from roofs and its slavering fangs had sent the last of the squirrels into hibernation. Its scavenging skies had compressed down upon the land, surveying it with a deadly malice. The rain it had brought with it was bitter, like ice-silver bullets of spite. It had gashed and gouged at every living thing, sparing no one. Doom-laden clouds, bloated with hatred, had roiled in the sky before unleashing their vengeful wares. Now the blaring of the wind and blasting of the rain was over. This was the aftershock. The world was becalmed. The furious winter tempests had given too much of themselves. They were spent.

High above me, the last of the morning stars were winking out sadly. They flashed their last, like bling-silver grains of sand in the dawn sky. Their bejewelled brilliance fading into nothingness was a wonder to behold. A ghostly, orb-white, winter moon hung there, imitating a pale strobe light. A corona of shimmering yellow ringed its dying glory. The sky around it was a wide sheet of grate-grey, hemmed in the horizon with a plum-purple tinge. It was a snow sky, Gods perfect gift for Christmas. Fluttery snowflakes puffed down on me, sylph-like in their airy silence. They created a mantle of Lapland-white. When they landed, they glinted like pulverized diamond dust. It was as if I was walking through an outdoor version of the mines of Solomon, a sparkling winterscape of white and silver.

Far below me, coils of smoke drifted up from sleepy hamlets. The cocoon of silence was ruptured by the sound of squealing. Some children were up early, playing on the duck-pond. From my height, it looked like a frozen salver of polished glass. The zero temperatures had encased the water in a prison of silver. In the distance, the peaks of the mountains were wreathed in a necklace of snow. The sun was coming up behind one of them, looking like a glowing torc as its full majesty was blocked by the mountains enormity. It threw down its watery shards of sunlight in vain. Its power was muted by nature’s iron-clad laws. Nothing it could do could banish the wonderland of white beneath it. Its only effect was to smash the flint-grey sky into wonderful striations of yellow, pink and orange. It was enough. The ornamental beauty of the land returned. All around me, the snow flashed and glittered like angel-fire. As my walk ended, I marvelled at the might of nature. Its awe inspiring majesty made my soul rejoice.

                                            
REPETITION

Repetition occurs when a word, phrase or sentence is deliberately used more than once for dramatic effect
. Its primary function is to reinforce an idea or mood for the reader. For example, a student could plan to open his essay with a phrase that is repeated. “It was
so
cold
. It was
so cold
that the lake froze over”. The danger here is that a corrector might think that his/her vocabulary was limited. There are a range of other words like algid, gelid and frigid that could have been used. As such, it may be wiser to encourage its use among more advanced students.

If repetition is to be used, it might be best to link the ‘hook sentence’ (the opening sentence) to the ‘unhook sentence’ (the closing sentence). For example, in the level 5 essay in the spring section, I employed that technique deliberately. The first line states: “Spring is
glee
”. That is the hook sentence. The unhook sentence was linked by one word to the hook sentence: “If it were a perfume, it would be called eau-de-
Glee
”. The theme throughout the essay concerned the joy and glee of spring. It is important that a hook sentence and an unhook sentence should be consistent with the theme of the passage in mind.