The dieback in the trees

Alright, this snippet is the peak of the mountain. It's really important.

We build on the previous snippet, continuing with the sounds of the night but folding in extra details to increase the resonance, and ending with a strong metaphor which will be reincorporated later.

Sometimes in the night I can hear their poop hit the ground it's so quiet. Sometimes it's so quiet, Dad says you can hear the dieback in the trees, killing them quietly from the inside. At night the sky blinks at us, always looking down.

That Eye, the Sky(1986)

Circumstance: Start each sentence with a condition or circumstance.

Detail: Add a resonant detail.

Expansion: Expand on the detail.

Strong metaphor: End with a strong, resonant metaphor. Whatever you've been describing, what else does it make you think of? If you're stuck, start choosing random associations until one feels like it fits.

The metaphor is important because we will use it at the very end of this series of lessons.

Notice all the resonant images and word choices in this passage: hit, quiet, dieback, killing, inside, blink, down—all words that strike that sombre note.

If you can, use images and word choices that reinforce the emotional tone of your piece.

Repetition and linking between the details

If you want a challenge, look carefully at the way Ort links ideas by repeating words. Also notice that the victim is at the heart of these links.

Sometimes in the night I can hear their poop hit the ground it's so quiet. Sometimes it's so quiet, Dad says you can hear the dieback in the trees, killing them quietly from the inside. At night the sky blinks at us, always looking down.

That Eye, the Sky(1986)

While we’re here, we have to stop and point out this line:

Sometimes it's so quiet, Dad says you can hear the dieback in the trees, killing them quietly from the inside.

This is an amazing bit of writing.

Writers build worlds through an accumulation of details, many of which are unnoticed by readers. The detail here is dieback, a fungus that kills trees in Western Australia, where this story is set. (Actually, dieback is just the symptom of the fungus; the fungus itself is called Phytophthora, but that wouldn’t sound as good, so Winton collapses the two details together.)

Selecting that detail is strong writing in and of itself, but to use it in this way, as a measure of how quiet the night is while also keeping death in the back of readers’ minds, it’s just masterful writing.

We don’t know what Winton was thinking when he wrote this line—whether it came to him instinctively as he wrote, he thought of it during revisions, he planned it in some way, or it was something he’d once said in conversation sitting on his own deck one night (“It’s so quiet, you can practically hear the dieback”) so it was an image already in his head and this was just the right moment to use it.

Whatever the case, it shows the power of knowing your story’s world in intimate detail.

Sometimes in the market I feel overwhelmed by the flood of people it’s so crowded. Sometimes it’s so crowded, Imani says we will all exchange souls, our bodies crushed and our spirits pressed from one body to another. All around the city grinds us together, like an ocean grinds sand.

At twilight the world drops its smile and puts on a mask. With its mask, the world becomes a villain in one of grandma’s old fairytale books, with predatory eyes and a wolfish grin. At twilight a curtain parts and dark story begins.

This is a tough snippet to copy, but see how you go. Your goals should be, in order of priority:

Match the core circumstance/detail/expansion pattern
Find a strong metaphor to end on
Repeat words to link between ideas
Choose resonant words, images and details that create a sense that something bad is about to come.

Write your variation here.

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

The dieback in the trees