Writers often fall into tropes and abstract descriptions because they aren’t describing a particular event (either invented or observed). Over the course of the next couple weeks, observe and describe two distinct sunsets (or sunrises).Be specific. Use clear and practical language. Avoid metaphor/simile and/or baroque characterization. Post your descriptions here by Fri. Dec 13.
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November 11: The sky is cloudless and empty. Up high, it’s a pale gray-blue, slowly shifting into yellow as it nears the horizon, where it turns fiery orange and red. From another angle, the blue melts into buttery yellow, then petal pink, then lavender, all in muted, watercolor shades over the treetops. The colors all seem as though they are obscured by mist or fog. The sun is beginning to sink down over the horizon but is still visible in the sky. It’s an overwhelming spot of orange, too bright to look at. Higher up in the sky and to my left is the moon, a spot of white light, in the waxing gibbous phase. It’s nice that you can look at the moon without being blinded.
November 21: Today, it’s raining for the first time in months. The sky is one uniform layer of dense gray clouds, hanging low in the sky. Everything is a dark, muddy blue, cast in the shadow of the rainclouds. I can’t see the sun from my window, but I can tell it’s setting because it’s started to go dim outside, the light growing dull and hollow. As the sun (I imagine) dips over the horizon, the cloudy gray-blue sky becomes a darker shade of gray-blue, until it’s just gray, then dark gray, then black. Eventually, the only light I can see comes from the glow of the billboard across the street, the little lamps on in people’s apartment windows. There are no stars and no moon tonight.
Sunset 1: The purple of the sky reaches all around the horizon rather than just one spot. It appears at the edge of the expanse of blue, turning into a lavender just at the edge of the day. The sky has few clouds and is clear, perhaps making the purple all so encapsulating. The blue seems almost like an afterthought to the purple which makes its border of the sky clear.
Sunset 2: There is purple on one side of the sky before it seems to stop almost abruptly. The front of the house goes from a light blue to the purple to the right side, like it's being pushed there. The sunset is a pleasant surprise after the sky being filled with angry clouds the past couple of days, leaving the world in perpetual darkness for what seemed like an eternity. But this sunset is a sweet farewell to the first sunny day in so long. The clouds are tinged with gold in the backyard, and I wonder how many sunsets I have observed from these exact spots. The purple overtakes the view from the windows in the dining room, but in the backyard, the clouds have become so golden it's like they've been spun with gold thread. The front of the house has blue fading into white instead of purple or gold. The threads of the world seem bare, like it's revealing something brand new, but also familiar. The white, purple, and gold all make up a patchwork of the sky, a different view from every side.
1. As the burning sun above descended, some of his orange began to slide off and onto the blue skyline. A wavy trifecta of blue, orange, and purple took over the sky. The white clouds began to block the sun. The air got cool because the heat source was no longer front and center.
2. Kris closed one eye and left one eye open. She saw no difference between the upcoming darkness of the sky or the darkness that occupied one side of her face. Violet hung all over the skyline. It was as if God wanted to give the people something to salute and marvel at before the moon was ready for her shift. When warmth became a desire for Kris, she would always sit atop the highest platform that was closest. Today, it was her peeling dark burgundy tiled roof. And just like the days that came before and the one that would come next, the red, yellow, and orange of the sun could never truly warm Kris. She decided to close both eyes; to get a head start over the setting sun before the darkness both in and around Kris would swallow her side of the world.
Gummi / Claire Lee:
Sunset 1: The outskirts of the sky is gray. At the core of the sunset is golden yellow which folds into a neon orange, cast upon a thick layer of clouds. The orange melts into a fiery red contoured by an ashy indigo. A wooden pole cuts through the scene, street lamps dotted on its left and right, internet wires stretched out across the width of the street. Shadows of leaf-fallen trees sway back and forth with the breeze. A suburban cream house stands on beams across the lawn.
Sunset 2: The pavement runs up to a lit-up street lamp. Patches of matted grass slope into a small hill where the blocky apartment and lab buildings stand shoulder to shoulder. Red R’s plastered onto windows, antennae off the rooftops poking the cloudless sky. They cover the setting sun, its outburst of color flowing out in the soft, fuzzy pastels of yellow into orange into pink into violet into indigo. A small white streak draws across from the violet to orange.
1: Looking past the houses in my suburban town never provided much comfort to me. Typically, it would stress me to see the rows of ugly houses as I sat on the roof of my own. But this time, I looked at the sky to see colors reaching far into a descending yellow disk. The sun was bright even at its departure, yet bright oranges and red bled into sky. Slowly it faded towards me until there was only a deep purple above my head. There was jealousy in my gaze towards the setting sun. I wanted to escape this maze of ugly homes and ugly lives and join something that never died but was always out of reach.
2. I lift myself from my bed as a fiery figure caught my attention from my balcony. I got to the balcony and looked out. There were few colors in the sky, but their intensity made up for it. The red and pink clouds were in rows that spelled out the end of the day. I woke up not long before the end of the day, and now my day was starting at night.
1- It's yellow light on yellow grass. The sun's as low as it'll get before the night starts, it feels like it's splashed onto the ground. The dead grass's almost alive again, but instead if a lush field it's almost like the whole hill is covered in hay. I feel warm. The ground feels warm. The light feels warm. The crunch of old leaves the only noise to say goodbye, as it the splash dries up, and the sun slowly moves on.
2 - It's the brief glimpse I get through my window. Time's passed and the world's a bit more distant from the sun since last time I decided to see it off before the night starts. I woke up late, and barely get to greet it as the long winter night will slowly begin. Still the gun greets me, the soon to be gone light being the first thing I see as I realized how late I slept in. If I open window I know it won't be warm, it'll be cold, and there's barely enough light to shine on everything. Just enough, to see me off, before the day ends.
- doinkus
1) The colors go from the brightest of oranges to the darkest navy blue, they look like two separate worlds and yet they blend in together so seamlessly. The clouds reflect the slightest bit of light left by the sun, in contrast to the growing darkness coming from behind. I can see the silhouette of New York City growing darker and darker as the city lights begin to brighten up the city that never sleeps, with the tiniest bit of yellow still showing up from behind. And the water reflects the shadows of the city, while also being illuminated by the bit of sunlight left in the sky.
2) The bright blue overlaps the sky as the brightness of the sun begins to rise and illuminate the morning sky. The water of the beach begins to turn into a light blue as it is lightened up by the sun. The reflection of the light begins as a very small line in the distance while becoming larger as it gets closer and closer to the shore. And the sand has not yet turned into the sandy white color one associates with the beach.
Night 1:
The sun descends toward the horizon, painting the sky in deepening shades of orange and crimson. Light fractures through scattered clouds, creating stark layers of color from bright gold near the sinking orb to deep purple overhead. The last rays catch dust particles in the cooling air, producing shafts of illumination. As darkness creeps in from the east, the intense colors slowly fade into twilight's soft glow.
Night 2:
Golden light spills across the ocean as the sun touches the water's edge. Waves reflect the fading daylight in countless glinting points while long shadows stretch across the beach. The warm radiance dims moment by moment, and stars begin to appear in the darkening eastern sky. A gentle breeze carries the day's last warmth as night approaches from across the sea.
Sunrise 1: As the sun rose, there was a silence that filled the air, with only the swishing sound of the light breeze filling the crisp air. The birds chirping bit at the natural silence as everything seemed to stand still, as the landscape slowly brightened. As the orange filled the bottom half of the sky, spurts of yellow broke through, the rays of the sun trying to disperse throughout the land. A deep but darker blue filled the first half of the sky, remnants of the night that was passing, looking as though it was a light purple. The trees stood with branches in the process of going bare as the sun began to show through the crevices.
Sunrise 2: As the waves touched the shore, its noise filled the ears of those around beat after beat. The air held a slight chill as the sun had only recently broken the surface. The ball of light had a shining white center that radiated into a bright yellow that filled the space around it until bleeding into the orange below. The sun rose with the white wispy clouds almost translucent around it, and there was the small black silhouette of a bird flying towards it. The day had started calmly, as the air began to warm, and the rays hit the surface of the ocean and sand, spreading over the cheeks of those who watched it.
The sun hid behind the clouds who now completely covered the sky, extending sidewards from a golden center to orange, then to red. There were lines of other clouds who were in front of the sun which made shadows as they loomed over, too, in the latter hues, and as the horizon got further away there less clouds and more pieces of the sky peeking through blue holes, who grew darker and darker, between the deep red. Just above there was only a single cloud slowly drifting away from the sun.
Behind was a white sphere where a gradient ring from bright yellow extended out, until it quickly blurred into the rest of the sky, making what looked like a dome shaped halo. The horizon was a singular strip of yellow with a mist extending upwards that made it glow. Light hit the front of the trees but the sun was so low that it made long casting shadows, and putting a hand up would cast the hidden side in darkness, too. It was already hard to see the ground where they were walking. The rest of the sky, whatever remained of the day, was dimming, fast.
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