Tuesday, 12 April 2011

Peter--Similes: The Arctic Sun


l.   Beyond the shimmering mist the sun was lurking like a phosphorescent philanderer.
2.  Swarms of hovering ice crystals, beset  the watery sun that  glared down at the bleak landscape like a crazed eye.
3.  Red, red, red the sun lay like a cardinal’s ransacked wardrobe.
4. The still waters of the lake lay like a vast fragment of translucent amber beneath the sorcery of the dying sun..
5.  Across the sea, the sun like an old magician,  cast a glittering yellow path to an undiscovered world of glory.
6.    Like a yellow cannonball, the sun wickedly suspended above the devastation  that lay scattered  like  a delicate Chinese Empress’  vase  smashed into a thousand precious pieces.
7.  Slipping slowly  behind the sombre mountains the sun glowed like a gigantic electric bulb.
8. Trapped between the dark,  brooding   sky and the sinister shadows of the mountainous  crags the bright rays of the sun boiled like a yellow sea thrashing to escape the clutches of the  night.  
9.   The low rays of the sun’s light cast such a spell on the troubled landscape that all was transformed into a tea set of  fine bone china.
l0.  Across the horizon the sun flowed like a golden river.

3 comments:

  1. I love the contrast with the cardinal's wardrobe Peter, it really gives you a sense of colour spreading everywhere.
    I also loved the old magician - what a lovely picture it paints. Fantastic!

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  2. You have a real talent for this Peter - I would recommend you work with some of these. I think it's a certain freedom that you permit yourself, which means you take risks and achieve some very startling and surrealistic effects. Numbers 1, 3, 4 and 7 were especially good. Number 6 contained two similies - which you should probably never try in a real sentence! My favourite was probably number 7, which though not as outre as some of the others, had a relevance to the world of oil exploration and the uses we put oil to (generating light). This points up one of the ways simile can be most effective - if it is appropriate to the emotional and moral world of the story.

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  3. For context re your arctic/novel themes I'd vote for 7.

    Re shifting to a new way of thinking - I personally loved no 3.

    I couldn't quite get my head around phosphorescent philanderers but the simile made me sit up and take notice.

    No 5 was a potential favourite ..magician, sense of timelessness and the yellow pathway that the sun can seem to create. My only sticking point was re a magician casting a path.

    I think you are really talented writer - but get a sense that you may need to "stick to the knitting" (management speak!)to focus on one current project/novel and see it through.

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