Module C.
Mirroring activity
One way to improve your imaginative writing is by ‘mirroring’. This means taking a piece of writing and
imitating its style.
The original story on the left is about the rain coming at the end of a drought.
My mirror story on the right is about the sea taking away the cliffs.
This is the original text:
They could feel it in the air, smell it even. The
atmosphere was thicker, more dense. It lay over
them like a heavy blanket. They breathed it in.
The unfamiliar aroma engulfing their lungs.
They breathed it in deeper and more deeply. The
sweet, musty scent tasted warm in their mouths,
the spiralling dust turned to mud on their
tongues and they savoured the moisture. The
red balloon that one of the boys held tilted
violently in his hands as the hot wind picked up
speed.
They were so young, so innocent. Never before had
they seen swollen creeks or overflowing dams. Or
heard the soothing “tat, tat, tat” on a tin roof as they
lay awake at night. No, they knew nothing of these
things. What they knew was the colour red.
They stood surrounded by red. Red dirt. Red air.
Red sun. Red was pain, red was sacrifice. It was
hardship and it was a struggle. It was hunger when
the crops wouldn’t grow and sadness when a much
loved pet was to be sacrificed. It was grief when a
farmer lost the game of Russian Roulette, when he
said ‘enough is enough’ and threw up his hands.
They were so young but not too innocent. They
knew the colour red.
This is my mirror:
She could sense something brewing in the wind.
She could even feel it. The stiff breeze buffeted
her. She leant against it and clutched at her coat
which flapped like a giant bird. She could taste
the salt of the ocean in it, and she could imagine
it on her skin. The flower that one of the girls was
holding shivered as the breeze blew with
increasing strength.
NOTE: my mirror does not copy. It takes inspiration. I
used the wind instead of swirling dust and I used
touch instead of taste as a sense. I used a flower as
a symbol instead of the balloon.
She was an adolescent, young and vulnredble.
Never in her life had she seen the vast, barren
land as empty and dehydrated before. She was
used to the pitter-patter placing her to rest at
night. This drought was unfamiliar to her. The
scent of the land used to be petrichor, now the
cracks in the dirt produce an earthy and musty
odour. The ground is surrounded by lifeless
sprouts of inhabitable grass blades.
She stood in the open field surrounded by stepping
stones of dirt, each becoming more fragile and brittle
with every step. She finally knew what hardship was.
The deprivation of abundant water which fueled the
earth. Realisation as it became clear how much she
took an element as simple as water for granted. This
was grief, this was struggle. Watching the hard work
and early sunrises that she spent growing, producing
and mothering crops day after day all become
pointless. Losing her beloved cattle and stock left her
grieving. At the end of each day, farmers called it
quits. She realised this was it. No produce to sell
means no money in hand and in her home. Her
vulnerability shone brighter each day the colour of
red rose upon them.