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gulps, waking her up in the process. Now she was awake. After all
this time, the long nights of loneliness were back. Only this time,
apart from her own lonely thoughts, there was the silence, too.
Even daybreak couldn t fix that.
We can take a moment to allow Josie s emotions to come to the
fore. It does not have to be long pages of gut-wrenching heartache;
Write the rights  know the wrongs 77
just enough reflection in the window before we look out again will
do.
What I propose to do here is give a few other examples of what
can be done with prose, from the very simple through to the more
complex.
Example one
Tom did not like the look of the man.
 Come on, Tom, said Mum.
Still Tom didn t budge. The man looked strange.
Here we are looking at an early read-to/read-alone piece of prose, for
ages four to six. It is simple and straight to the point, with a crisis
looming.
Taking it up a notch to ages six to eight, though, we can begin to
introduce a simile and perhaps even a small metaphor.
Example two
Tom did not like the look of the man. He thought he had strange
eyes. They popped out of his head like a frog s.
 Come on, Tom, said Mum.
Still Tom didn t budge.
The frog-eyed man stared at him.
The simile is easy to spot:  like a frog s . But the small metaphor of the
 frog-eyed man works, too. Because we are linking the metaphor to the
initial simile, we are not taxing the reading skills too much, and provided
this isn t overused the reading becomes more of a pleasure. Of course, the
metaphor has to stay simple. If I had written,  the man s Sprite eyes ,
would anyone have known what the metaphor was? Back in the sixties
and early seventies the Austin Healy Sprite sports car was nickname the
Frog-eye. Setting your prose is all about trying to get the reading level
right: being too smart can be just as bad as not being smart enough (and,
be honest, would you have worked out the displacement of the Sprite to
78 Write the rights  know the wrongs
a frog-eye car as a metaphor for frog-eyed?). The secret here is not to get
too smart for smart s sake. Make the metaphors and similes count.
Writing is not all about what you know but what you can give.
Prose is all about clarity. And your story has to be clear, hence Philip
Pullman s window metaphor. Nevertheless, pausing for a moment
doesn t have to be just window-dressing. I particularly like the extended,
epic or Homeric simile. This is where the ordinary simile is taken to
greater depth of expression and expansion. It works for the older age
group of eight to ten.
Example three
Tom did not like the look of the man, who was staring oddly at him.
He shuffled nervously.
Suddenly the man s eyes began to bulge. They didn t look real.
In fact Tom thought they were like two white mice with pink noses,
nearly popping out of his head. Tom half expected to see a whole
army of mice spewing out of his head any second now. But there
was something else worrying him. In his head, Tom could hear a
roar like thunder and flashes of electricity seemed to zip all around
the room in front of his eyes. But worse than that, the whole world
felt as though it was shaking beneath him.
The man with the bulging eyes went on staring.
 Come on, Tom, said Mum.
Still Tom didn t budge. He shivered; the earthquake persisted.
It was like the man was trying to see into the dark reaches of Tom s
very soul and he couldn t keep him out.
OK, so this is not Homer (or Philip Pullman, for that matter, who writes
wonderful epic similes in His Dark Materials), but we can see how the
reading-age experience is being enhanced with a little attention to the
prose. Extending the simile to thunder, lightning, earthquakes and dark
reaches of the soul tugs at the extent of Tom s concern. The tension is
heightened, the potential crisis is greater than it was considered earlier,
yet the story is essentially the same. Try this out for yourself, and, if you
want better examples, read His Dark Materials to see a master of his
Write the rights  know the wrongs 79
craft at work. It really is worth the effort and I take my hat off to Philip
Pullman for it (funny how my use of cliché works so well here:
sometimes it says all that is needed).
Example four
Going back to Italo Calvino, one of the enduring aspects of his work is [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]