Writing with Stardust: The Ultimate Descriptive Guide for students, parents, teachers and writers (6 page)

1. The coal-fired peppers were delicious.

2. They went well with the barbecued chicken.

3. The fried onions were a gastronomic delight.

                                                 
LEVEL 1: BASIC SENTENCES

1. The beach was
flax-gold
.
COLOUR

2. We heard the
snoozy
sea lap gently.
SOUND

3. We walked on
a bow of beach
.
SHAPE

4.
Cylinders of light
moved across the sea.
METAPHORS

5. The other tourists were
leather-brown
.
TANS

6. The neon-blue sky was
threaded
with silver.
KNITTING TERMS FOR THE SKY

7.
Children were squealing
on the beach.
OTHER IMAGES

8. The
sun toasted
our skin.
SENSATION

9. The sea air smelled of
chlorine
.
SMELL

10. The
spicy sauces
in the burger burned our tongues.
TASTE

                                      
LEVEL 2: A BASIC PARAGRAPH

The beach we walked on was
moon glow-gold
. The sea looked
dozy
as it rested in the afternoon glow. We were walking on
a horseshoe of beach
.
Towers of radiant light
soaked the sea with their beauty. The holiday makers we saw all had
coconut-brown
faces
. Clown-hatted donkeys were
braying
loudly as children pulled their tails. The burning
sun
roasted
us like nuts in an oven. The sea sky seemed
threaded
with silver. A warm,
tangy odour
came from the sea as we walked towards a hot dog stand. The
sulfurous mustard
burned us nearly as much as the sun.

                                        LEVEL 3: CREATIVE PARAGRAPHS

It’s not often you get to see a
sunrise-gold
beach. That was our privilege as we gazed out at the
slothful sea
. Ebbing ever so gently, it looked at peace in its jade-green gown. It felt like we were walking on a carpet of candy floss, such was its softness. The golden sand swept around in
a scythe of beach
, hemmed in by towering dunes. Far out to sea,
rivers of pulsing light
saturated the sea with gold. Only the occasional tourist walked past us. There was an absence of
sun-blasted bodies
in this Babylon of beaches.

The horizon seemed to be
stitched
with a silver line. The
seagulls were squawking
over our heads and squabbling for morsels from the hotel kitchen. As the
sun scorched
our bodies to a crisp, a funfair of barbecued aromas drifted towards us. The
saline tang
of the sea mingled with the cuisine, adding salt to its appeal. We decided to obey our rumbling stomachs and eat. Lobster on a bed of watercress was our fare that afternoon. It tasted tender and
briny
and the shell food sauce had a hint of bouquet to it.

                                      
LEVEL 4: ADVANCED PARAGRAPHS

We stood on the cliff. By chance, we had found the Mecca of coves. We could see a fracture of white sand, a gash of zephyr-haunted cliffs and a wide slash of bay. It was a watery wonderland and the beach was drenched in a
lightning-gold
, dawn haze. The mighty heap of sea flowed in its astral-blue smoothness from the horizon in. The horizon itself was a thin seam where the canopy of sky and the plane of sea
hemmed
each other into a line of silver. It was as if they had been welded into an extended splinter of perfection. In the distance,
streamers of tapered light
splayed out, flowing through cracks in the cloud. We decided to clamber down to the beach.

Slumbering
in its blue robe, the sea greeted us and the
half-moon of beach
softly. The sand was floury underfoot and a feathery, sugar-white of hue. A single yacht
bobbed and lolled
in the incoming tide, like a toy in a bath. Its lights winked saucily as the wave-crests rose gently. Looking around the secluded beach, we didn’t see any of the normal sights; tourists with
Day-Glo tans
, tacky stands or chattering hawkers. We realised that we were standing in the gateway of paradise. The siren call of the sea was soothing, the wave music welcome. It was like being wrapped in comforting cellophanes of warm sounds and soft light.

Our serenity was ruptured by the raucous cry of a gull. The rocky hollowness of the cliffs made it seem mournful and cavern loud. It echoed at first with a mournful sound, recoiling from the cliff-rock. It rebounded and its vibration was resonating in the spacious air. The bouncing and distortion of sound rang it out once more. Then it foundered and finally faded away into nothingness.

Our serenity had been interrupted. We decided to make our way home. The rising
sun laminated us
with its warmth and
a theatre of pelagic smells
wafted from the steaming seaweed.
It took the edge off our hunger
and we decided not to eat.

Our footprints in the sand followed us all the way home. Heavens hideaway had been a transcendental experience and we resolved to do it again someday.

      
                      LEVEL 5: USING 10 COLOURS TOGETHER

I sauntered along the shimmering sand. It was
unicorn-white
and as soft as sugar. It felt like powdered chalk dust under my feet. In places, it was speckled with glistening, wave tossed shells. The beach was torc shaped and fringed by
jasper-green
palm trees.

Out in the bay, a venerable lighthouse seemed bolted to a clump of naked rock. It jutted up like a round tower from the confined deep of the ocean. Coiling hoops of
vault-black
were wrapped around it, split by
bleach-white
veins.

Closer to the shore, the naked rocks were limpet-kilted. The waves were slushing off them, their
crystal-silver
crests sparkling like pulverized diamonds. The sea was gin clear beyond the tide line, looking paralyzed under a
luminol-blue
sky.

Perma-tanned tourists passed by, burnished to a
walnut-brown
by the sun. Most of them moved with the languid and louche air of the ‘nouveau riche’, like panthers in slow-mo. They were here to chillax in this
rapture-blue
gateway of paradise.

It was a Noah’s-ark-safe utopia. The beach shone like
earthlight-gold
as I ambled along and I embraced the warmth of the sun. As it went down, striations of
cerise-pink
crept into the sky. I knew now why this beach was called the jewel of the Mediterranean.

                             LEVEL 5: USING 30 SOUNDS TOGETHER

I
ambled
along the melodious seashore. Where the breakers
crashed
, the pebbled sand was alive with sound. The ebbing sea
scraped
the grit
slushily
,
slurpily hissed
at them,
polished
,
washed
and released them.

They
fizzed
and
swished
,
sluiced
and
sizzled
, before finally settling,
raspy
and
seething
. The
flux
and
reflux
of the tide sounded like a lake of
sloppy
mercury. Sibilantly
hissing
, the wave song was magnified by the wide
sweep
of sea and sky.

It made it appear as if I was walking in surround sound and embalmed with nature’s music. The
symphonious
mermaids call of the sea was uplifting, like a potion for the soul. The
echo
of a thousand tides
washed
over me and I
quaffed
deep from its heady magic.

Someone had
sprinkled
dream dust on this slice of heaven millennia ago and the memory of it still
swirled
around. The Mediterranean
pulse
of the sea became
muted
and
metronomic
. A delicious smell
wafted
in the air and I decided to
laze
my way towards it.

                             LEVEL 5: USING SMELLS/ SENSATIONS/ TASTES

A carnival of scents floated in the air. My stomach rumbled and growled. It was an intoxicating mix, containing a whisper of coconut and a suspicion of citrus. It smelled sumptuous. My eyes watered and my palate tingled with the sudden hunger.

There was another, more powerful scent in this symphony of aromas and it began to dominate. It was the unmistakable smell of charcoal sear. I licked my lips and smacked my chops in anticipation. Flame-grilled meat was on the menu and I could almost taste the splattering juices dripping from the tender centre. I could pick out the tangy, divine rumour of spitted calf gliding towards me also.

The thought of the steak fat dribbling and splashing onto the hot griddle tantalized me. The scorching and sizzling of the meat made my legs wobble. A rumour of barbecue sauce, spicy and hot, joined the broth of lavish smells. It was a sensory overload.

I decided to run towards the chef before it was all gone. When I eventually bit into the succulent steak, the squirting blood was lava hot. It tasted exquisite. The fried onions with mushrooms were mouth-watering and the steak was out of this world. My endorphins went into orbit. It was the most blissful and savoury meal that I have ever tasted.

     
                          
METAPHOR 

A
metaphor
is a comparison of two things without using as or like
. It is also known as
parabole
. Metaphors can infuse a sparkling vitality to anyone’s writing if used in the right manner. In many ways, they are a portal to a higher plane of thinking. The best example I can give for this is the word ‘mountain’. It is quite extraordinary that there is no other word for ‘mountain’ in the English language. You may argue that words like alp, hillock, peak and mount are similar and you would be right. They are similar, but they are not the same.

How do you then write an essay or passage on a mountain without constantly referring to the same name over and over? Surely this makes it very monotonous for the reader? The answer is to use metaphors to help the reader visualise what you are trying to convey. Using metaphors for shapes such as mountains enables you to use the ‘
artist’s eye’
. This is where the higher plane of thinking comes in. If you draw the shape of a mountain range and ask a student to describe what they see, they will probably say a mountain range. If you encourage them to give other examples of that shape, it is very gratifying to hear the answers. The key word here is to encourage them. It is a technique that has to be nurtured, not acquired. What you are essentially asking them to do is to give a list of
metaphors for the mountain
. They will move through the gears pretty quickly, from
shark’s fins
to
rose thorns
to
talon tips
. Then you can encourage the sentences to look like this:

“The peaks had
the shape of a row of shark’s fins
”.

Now they will link the outline of an object to another shape regularly when asked, forming metaphors quite easily. The
‘artist’s eye’
should be encouraged for trees, waterfalls, beaches, clouds and any other parts of nature that have a contour, a shape or an outline. A tree thus becomes
the skyscraper of the forest
, a waterfall becomes
a silver slide
and
feathery clouds
hang over
sickle-shaped beaches
.