Children's writing: Using an extended metaphor in picture description writing - by J

Your picture description creates a stunningly beautiful and simultaneously disturbing portrait of this scene, J.

Our task was to use an extended metaphor throughout the writing to show how cruel and narcissistic the sun was and the havoc it could weave in this fragile fishing village. Your language choices are truly spectacular and each sentence is rich with well-chosen imagery.

This piece of writing has to be digested slowly, like poetry, to fully understand and appreciate its beauty.

A huge well done!

Let's read...

The Swamp - by J

The smoky haze covered the light, as the small hairs of grass peered out of the ghostly water, waiting for a glimpse of that beautiful, iridescent sun; none came and they now scolded it for being such a narcissistic beast. A rushing sound came from underneath the Mangolis Tribe’s boat- it was the swamp: pure graphite-grey drowning in the ocherous dots of damselfish; chiffon spots of pearlescent fish were swimming around the tangled reeds strangling in with roots of stiff bamboos-sitting sinisterly waiting the passing boats. The swamp, whispering with secret, slithered through the grassy bank, that was a surface of plants that lurched in the chilly wind, that cut through the water like an invisible knife.

The physalis-paper house sat, perched on top of an ominous mountain with obsidian, jagged teeth, and scatterings of slimy moss, and a waterfall of algae. They were hoodless devils with winking eyes, glowing in the inky depths of darkness the sun had given to these poor, hopeless villagers. These houses looked as if they were floating on this haunted veil of murk, that dropped its lanky arms down; its pointed spear at the top of its papery body pierced clouds, expecting It to bring sun down, but still nothing poured out except more greyness. Relating to its stumpy stature, if these houses were humans, they would be very stout. Ripped roofs let the wood creak, and splinters of the damp material looked as if they had folding claws, that now grabbed on the crow-black depths of dingy water.

Villagers hoped and wished for the sun to come out- they prayed for the gilded, golden ball to shine brightly down on there, (then luscious grass) and now drooping, draping grass that was withered and tortilla coloured. Slowly, as they prayed, a warm glow penetrated through the heavily layered clouds, then, one by one, pinpricks of sunlight were dropped onto the surface of the swamp, then whole dapples, then a whole bucket of sunlight had fallen down. It drowned. The sun took their water source: a golden thief that stole every year. Now the smoky haze was replace with hazy golden mist; and the water was replaced with a pruned, hollow hole, a nothingness.

-ends-