First person in That Eye, the Sky 4: Increasing the tension

There's a lot going on in this one.

Expanding on the alert: Start with a link to the alert in the previous snippet, but...

Problem: Note that there’s something unexpected about it.

Secondary character response: What does the secondary character do?

Narrator response: What does the narrator do? Or what don't they do? (It might be easier to follow the rest of the snippet if the narrator can’t bring themselves to respond, but it’s up to you.)

Simile or metaphor: Amplify the feeling by using a simile.

Emotion: Let the narrator tell us how they really feel.

Repetition: Tim Winton repeats this two more times, varying it slightly, for effect. Try it out for yourself, but your mileage may vary.

Detail: What detail in the scene would reinforce the narrator's fears?

Question: Finally, the narrator asks themselves a question which betrays their emotions further.

In this snippet, the question is interesting. It gives us a physical detail (the engine is still running) and also reinforces how desperate and scared Ort is (because the question shows us how he wants the world to be more normal than it is).

While there’s a lot going on in this snippet, it’s not as challenging as some of the others we’ve done.

Focus on the idea of sustaining tension by stretching out the action, and by having the narrator engage with peripheral details in the scene.