Describe a scene in 4 sentences or less - native or english

[Rigwyn]

Describe a scene in 4 sentences or less ( In your native language or English).

I thought this would be a fun game. Describe a detailed scene of your choosing in 4 sentences or less giving as much detail as possible. Condensed writing like this is a good way to quickly stuff images into your reader's head without losing their attention.

Respectful discussion, questions and feedback on each other's work is encouraged.

Update: Please feel free to write it in either your native language and/or English. It would also be interesting to see and discuss how such writing is done in non-english languages and how its translated/transliterated to English.

I'll start:


Our farm resembled a desert and our crops, brittle, yellowed parchment. The air had suddenly cooled and the scent of rain lingered and teased like a sadistic bully bent on sowing denial and repressed rage. Slowly, its scent passed as did our hope, our cattle and loved ones. Those of us who remained were still fiercely divided on whether to stay or abandon four generations of hard work, pride, history, and buried kin.

[Illysia]

From this I get the impression of a crop failure on massive proportions. Maybe the rains came too late? I take it though that this was some sort of long term problem as everything has gone. Maybe cattle and people died from multiple crop failures?

Now whoever is left have hit rock bottom and there is just nothing left to tell themselves that the can save so they have to just walk away.

I miss anything?

[Rigwyn]

Yeap... that's exactly what I was going for in this particular example. I was trying to stuff in not only what it looked like, but how the drought was perceived, how the survivors felt about it, what compelled them to stay despite being in a seemingly hopeless predicament.

Some of the thought process that goes into this includes writing the basic idea down, eliminating unneeded or cliche phrases, replacing plain, boring words with more colorful, tasty words - or words that convey more than one intended meaning, erasing everything and starting over, replacing words so that they are not used more than once ( little connecting words being the exception), replacing klunky sounding words that make you trip over your own tongue with ones that feel smoother - or that simply sound better when you read through it. Optimizing the choice of words used to control the speed at which your progress as you read. Sometimes you want the words and images to spill out rapidly, sometimes you want things to slow down to a crawl.

[Volki]

Burnt eyes the only guide, my body heaves itself into a tiled cave. Blistered foot slams splintered door, then snags on my shorts. Fall into the stall, and sweat smears the bowl. Plop, plop; aaahh.

[Rigwyn]

lol

[Moja Aere]

Nice idea, Rigwyn !
Ok, so:

A jongleur with a painted smile as big as deep are wrinkles around eyes, similar to what happen to the soil when it's dried by the sun. Funny or ironic on a tear-stained face, breathing the salt of the ocean brought by the wind. Sitting on a stool with long insect's legs once colored with a bright metallic green, now faded like the poor grass growing all around. The stool is on the left side of what once was a stage and now is just rubble: no more theater around it, the red curtain is aside, crumpled like vehicles involved in a car accident and the ceiling is a leaden sky.

(not an english native speaker here, but if I'm going to say/write something in english I try to avoid my native language's structure, so, not adding any translation - at least, for now - also because, if I did, these 4 sentences would probably become longer and much more twisted)

[Rigwyn]

I like this. 

I remember seeing lots of paintings of sad, crying clowns when I was a kid. (So THAT's why Rig's so F-ed up!)  This definitely reminds me of that - though  instead of just making the jongleur cry or sulk, you made him/her look sad both directly AND indirectly. Nice.

[LigH]

Immediately reminds me on "Otto di Catania" by Yello. A song impersonating a sigh.

Expand the comments and scroll down, down, down for lyrics and a translation.

[Rigwyn]

Heh... nice video.

[LigH]

Ignore the images. Only listen.

[Eonwind]

interesting thread!

Dark night, red fear. He's running in the unnaturally silent forest (of his mind's eye), his deep breath the only sound. In its ears his hearthbeats: one more steps and there's no escape. Dark cold wings of the endless night embraced the hopeless one... As he felt his hearthbeat fades away a trail of blood drags him into the abyss of the ethernal void: a prison, forever...

[Rigwyn]

Nice. I hope to write up some more later....

[Moja Aere]

you made him/her look sad both directly AND indirectly.

thanks: this human being was supposed to look that way, 'glad' (s)he did .

Immediately reminds me on "Otto di Catania" by Yello. A song impersonating a sigh.

teacher, teacher… I didn't copy my homeworks! really ! (I had no idea this song existed, and, by the way, it made think about a someone sitting on the step out of an old cafe with lanky, gloomy, metallic chairs and tables, staring at an old open suitcase on the ground… another 4 sentences scene, maybe :p . also, I wasn't thinking of good old sad clowns: it was just Rigwyn's crop failure which made me 'see' dried soil, so 'earth's wrinkles', so…)

[Bonifarzia]

Two short sentences, one scribble, a majestic creature.
http://www.hydlaaplaza.com/smf/index.php?topic=36403.msg462374#msg462374

[Rigwyn]

Mueffel Bueffel  ... nice