Observing and describing in Storm Boy 5: Describing the weather

Weighed down the roof

And then things got worse.

By now, the storm itself doesn’t need to be mentioned. Only how it affects Storm Boy’s world. This snippet finishes with his dad trying to deal with what’s happening.

In June they flattened the sedge, rooted out some of the bushes that had crouched on top of the sand-hills for years, and blew out one of the iron sheets from the humpy. Hide-Away tied wires to the walls and weighed down the roof with driftwood and stones.

Storm Boy(1963)

Describing anything, even a raging storm, can be dull if it’s a long passage. Colin Thiele uses a lot of actions to keep things dynamic and interesting. 

In this snippet are:

  • flattened
  • rooted out
  • crouched
  • blew out
  • tied
  • weighed down

Keep a close eye on the actions and descriptors he uses to keep it interesting. What word choices can you use to do the same?

Check these examples.

During January the city cooked, baking metal, bitumen and concrete alike, and anything left outside for more than ten minutes was impossible to touch with bare skin. Amelia started to wear gloves when she was treasure hunting and left the tap near her mattress on a small trickle so that the black cat had cool water to drink.

During the last two weeks of school it thickened into a downpour, shrouded the coast in a darkness so thick that Moreton Bay Island vanished completely, and pounded the town so ceaselessly that the drains and gutters turned into fountains. Xavier gave up the umbrella and raincoat, and accepted being soaked all the time.

Write your own variation.
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