If they scattered me like ashes, all across the land

If they buried me like tooth and nail, and foot, and pallid hand

If they gave me stone to mark my life and my deathly day

And flowers flesh which rotted in a quick and voidless way

I’d be the only life of me, and only death of you

But then I’d have another life, to meet the dark anew

The Girl Next Door is based on Jack Ketchum’s novel of the same title. Ketchum’s story is loosely based on the true story of the torture and murder of Sylvia Likens by Indianapolis single mother Gertrude Baniszewski in 1965.

The Storm reaches out across the sky

As the shadows say goodbye to the light

The rain falls down into the sea

As I stand here waiting for you to rescue me

I’ll meet you on the spindly bridge

Where angels die for all our sins

And where the people go

Just to get away

From the lives they live almost every single day

As the storm reaches out, out across the sky

I’ll walk with you where angels fall

And people crawl upon their knees

Where every day

We fade away

From this disease

I’ll hold your hand

Into the land

Of burning trees

As the storm reaches out, out across the sky

I highly recommend Description for anyone wanting to delve deeper into writing description. The most important thing that Wood discussed among these pages is showing vs. telling, putting that debate to rest once and for all. She shows the reader several different ways in which the same passage can be written in full narrative, full dialogue, and a blend of both. There are a number of writers who have a showing or telling style that they employ that is their own, and the trick is to figure out your own balance as it relates to the story you’re trying to tell.

This book is packed with several examples of how to write better description – including how to use more relevant description and to edit out the slower, less relevant writing. I found the contents of Description to be useful in constructing unique people, environments, and actions.