First person in That Eye, the Sky 3: Sounds of the night

Listening to the night

This is the longest snippet in this lesson. Ort focuses on the sounds of the night, and describes them in rich detail.

Instead I'm listening to the night coming across from the forest—all small sounds like the birds heading for somewhere to stay the night, the sound of the creek tinkering low when everything gets quiet, the chooks making that maw-maw sound they do when they're beginning to sleep all wing to wing up under the tin roof of the chookhouse. 

That Eye, the Sky(1986)

Contrasting connector: Transition from the previous snippet with a contrasting connective device, because the narrator is not doing their obligation. (You can just use the word instead if that works for you.)

Alternative action: What is your narrator doing instead? It'll be easiest if they are doing something that involves sensing the environment in some way (looking, listening, smelling, touching, even imagining).

Expanded details x 3: Build a picture of the world through three long expansions.

To create long expansions, you can link smaller expansions. Prepositions (such as in, on, when, under, until) are your friend here (e.g. the chooks making that maw-maw sound they do when they're beginning to sleep all wing to wing up under the tin roof of the chookhouse).

If you look carefully, you’ll notice that many words in this snippet have a sombre resonance: night, small, low, quiet, sleep.

All of these words subtly resonate with the sense of death and loss.

This will become more apparent later, but Tim Winton is also deliberately writing this scene as quiet and still as a way to contrast with the upcoming scene of racing to the accident. (That Eye, the Sky is understated as a whole, so to get the contrast Winton has to make this scene really understated.)

Just something for you to notice and keep in mind.

We’ve modelled the structure for getting into this snippet, but we’ll leave the expansions up to you. Just see if you can find some ways to build on each of your expansions, and if you are stuck, try using a random preposition and see where that takes you.

Instead I’m walking through Kenyatta Market looking for food—spiced sausages spitting on a grill like fat brown eels, fries bubbling in vats of oil that smell of home, mama fish tossed in a wide black pan as if the cook doesn’t want the flesh to ever touch the metal but just stay in the air spinning above the fire.

Instead I’m watching night fall upon the woods—the sun glowing dark orange like a dying ember, the air filling with violet mist, the trees losing form and detail as the darkness floods them like ink soaking into ragged paper.

Write your variation here.
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