Most of the year

As we’ve said, the first part of the description are physical details. A two word descriptor and a brief run down of his regular clothes.

He grew up to be supple and hardy. Most of the year he wore nothing but shorts, a shirt, and a battered old Tom Sawyer hat.

Storm Boy(1963)

Thiele doesn’t just zoom out in space, he zooms out in time as well. The phrase “He grew up to be…” gives us this feeling of time passing, which again helps create this kind of epic, poetic, timeless feeling around Storm Boy.

In one of the examples below we simply say “Amelia was…” and in another we use the same “Xavier grew up to be…” phrase, so you can see the difference. If you want to get that timeless quality, try using “This character grew up to be…” or something similar.

In the last lesson we talked about Colin Thiele’s love of two word descriptors (‘windswept and tussocky’, ‘gargled and gurgled’, ‘darts and writhes’), and this passage is no different.

An interesting note about this choice of words is that supple (bends and moves gracefully) and hardy (strong, able to live well in harsh conditions) are terms used to describe outdoor plants more than humans! The relationship of Storm Boy to his environment continues.

Here are some examples.

Amelia was wiry and nimble. Her wardrobe was colourful and always mismatched, a hodgepodge of garb discovered in bins or given to her by charities.

Xavier grew up to be breezy and bright. Weekdays he put up with the school uniform: white button-up shirt, knee-high socks, tartan tie and bottle-green hat.

Write your own variation.

Observing and describing in Storm Boy 2: Describing a person