First person in That Eye, the Sky 6: The bad event

It’s blood—I’m not stupid

The second snippet develops the scene with a series of details, but there are some interesting first-person wrinkles.

The seats are all back and forward and up and over everywhere. Everything inside is sticky. It's blood – I'm not stupid. I go round the side to where the open tray is. A bale of hay has come loose and spilt itself all over. 

That Eye, the Sky(1986)

Detail 1-3: Describe the aftermath through a series of details.

Change position: The narrator moves to get a better look at something.

Detail 4: Finish with another detail. It doesn't have to be profound—the next snippet will go deeper.

There are four main physical details: seats, blood, tray, hay.

But notice how much the description of these details reflects Ort’s specific point of view as a young boy. For instance:

The inside is covered in blood.

vs

Everything inside is sticky. It’s blood—I’m not stupid.

It’s a combination of sensory detail and then defensive commentary that reminds us Ort is telling the story, and Ort is just a kid.

So you can approach this snippet with two levels of challenge.

Easy level

Focus on the description of each detail and don’t worry too much about the perspective and interior world of your narrator.

This is a fine choice to make, and pretty much what we’ve done in our examples below. 

Challenge level

If you want to work a bit harder, maybe you can find ways to describe your details that more strongly reflect your narrator’s point of view and remind us that they are the one’s telling the story.

It’s undamaged, except one of the handlebars is bent like an elbow. There is a truck on its side. A red shipping container and a crowd of men with their hands on it. As I get closer I see cuts in the dirt where the container hit the ground. The dirt around the bike is black and wet.

Everything is everywhere. Books strewn, plates smashed, curtains shredded. Her kettle smokes on the stove—the fire is going but the water has long since boiled away and now the air is bitter with the smell of burnt metal. I walk through the doorway to her bedroom. The wall above her bed is covered in blood.

Write your variation here.
Previous page