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

That will be the police

Now we’re going to expand the scene from the ute to the surrounding environment. Again, the first-person point of view is strong, with a variety of subjective statements.

A long way away there is a siren. That will be the police. It's a long way for them to come. I suppose they will look at the skid marks and those trees over there that are all flat and sprinkled with glass.

That Eye, the Sky(1986)

To make this snippet work, you need to introduce a new focus that strikes the narrator as important—important enough that they will have beliefs and opinions about it.

New focus: Introduce a new focus that catches the narrator’s attention.

Belief: What could your narrator believe about the meaning or significance of this new focus?

Judgment: How might the narrator evaluate the situation? (Or if a judgment doesn't make sense in your context, what else might they believe?)

Prediction: What would they predict about this new focus? What do they think will happen?

Expanding: Expand on the details of the prediction.

A motherly woman is picking up Imani’s bike. I need to stop her taking it. People in this city will steal anything. If I don’t stop her, she will walk into the darkness of the estate and Imani will be angry at me for losing her bike.  

Then I see Grandma standing in the corner. There’s been a mistake. She’s fine. In a moment the Woodsman will step in and all of us will laugh with relief and Grandma will tell us there’s a perfectly innocent explanation for all this blood. 

Write your variation here.
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