SUMMER 2013 Week 2

Work for Week Two:

Close-up of the face

Write a short description which involves ‘big’ close-ups of two different faces,

as they might occur in a film.       Focus on such things as the texture of the lip,  the pattern of

colours in the iris, the hairs in the nose.    You don’t have to focus just on one feature, such as ear, nose, mouth, but very often it comes down to that.

The images below are just thinking suggestions, not ‘required’ descriptions.  Better do your  lover's eyelids or his/her fluffy eyebrow

 

Close ups are useful to make your writing more vital, and also to draw the reader in and make him/her create a person or a setting for him/herself.   You mention one significant detail and that sets off the reader's imagination to do that.    

So if you mention that a person in your story or poem has ears flattened to his head so close they made someone else think of crumpled metal, you leave the rest of the head to the reader to 'construct' for him/herself.  

You could simply mention the detail, like the eye is above being very pale green. Or you can use comparisons:  the eye has an iris like pale oil,  eel green,  a forest seen from space, has a highlight like a speck of torn paper, a chip on black glass.   The wizard had eyebrows like scullery brushes.    Her lips were as soft as shrimps.  The child's lips just parted showing uneven front teeth, teeth with small lumps along the edges.