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

You’d see the lights of the city

The next snippet is a little complicated. It’s a description of surroundings, but it compares two contrasting details and shifts in perspective, and it brings in some first person commentary as well.

If you climbed the dying jarrah trees down there towards the creek, you'd see the lights of the city. From here, the only lights in sight are from Cherry's roadhouse a hundred yards along the highway on the other side of the road. You can see their bowsers glowing, and sometimes you think you can actually see the numbers rolling in them, but you're just kidding yourself.

That Eye, the Sky(1986)

Notice is the link between the end of the previous snippet and the beginning of this snippet:

Previous snippet:Wait . . . wait on . . . I can hear a car. No, it was someone passing. Someone leaving the city. 

This snippet: If you climbed the dying jarrah trees down there towards the creek, you'd see the lights of the city. 

So step 1 is to make a mental note of whatever environmental detail you used at the end of the previous snippet.

With that detail from the previous snippet in mind:

Circumstance: Open by describing the circumstance under which someone could see or otherwise perceive this detail.

Detail: Describe the detail.

Contrasting circumstance: Then come up with a contrasting circumstance in which you would perceive contrasting details.

Contrasting detail: Describe the contrasting detail.

Zooming in: Zoom into one particular detail in the scene you’ve created.

Thoughts: Finally, shift from external description to internal thoughts.

If you went upstairs to the empty hair salon and looked out from the balcony over the rooftops, you would see the supermarket, very bright and busy, just blocks away. From our doorway down below, all you see are dark shops and empty windows running up and down both ends of the long dark street. If you see someone move in the shadows you jump, heart racing because no matter how old you are you still think you have seen the dead, just like on TV.

When I was a little girl, Mother and I had a pair of blonde ponies called Hansel and Gretel who were good for the small trails between villages. But when the Woodsman came to live with us, he brought two tall mares built for speed and named only for their colours, Oak and Chestnut. Chestnut smells like her name, and although I know she belongs to him, I like to believe that really belongs to me. 

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