Book: Akata Witch

Author: Nnedi Okorafor

My Goal: To pay more attention to specific types of descriptions in books so I can apply them to
my own writing.
Quote

Page

Background

Application

The character (Sunny)

was looking into the
flame of a candle. She is
very interested in fire and
its behavior.

Use similes to describe things that are not

cliche. Instead of saying the fire is
something cliche like the sun, the author
thought outside the box.

Her face felt tight and tingly.

50
When she looked around
everything was deep, colorful,
and almost too alive, like when
theyd made the trust knot.

Sunny just went through

initiation, where basically
she needed to go
through a process to gain
her powers that she
already had, they just
had to be activated, after
her initiation finished then
she woke up and that is
what she is describing.
They made the trust knot
earlier so that Sunny
could tell no one about
the Leopard People,
because she was bound
by magic to do whatever
she promised in that
moment.

Use personification to create the motions

and descriptions of an object, stay outside
of cliche ideas and really use descriptions
that people wouldnt expect to read about.

Chichis spirit face looked like

a perfectly carved ceremonial
mask. It was long, about the
length of her forearm, and
made of a marble-like
periwinkle substance. The two
eyes were square indentations
colored in what looked like
blue paint. Two white lines ran
from the eyes to the sides of a
pointy chin. The nose was
long and outlined in white. The
mouth was a large black grin.

66

Every Leopard person

has a spirit face that
they hide under their
regular face. In this
scene one character is
just showing her spirit
face to the main
character.

Start with one vague description, but then

go back and fill in each specific part again.
They started by saying it looked like a
mask, and then went on to create the
specific mage of the mask, going over each
feature to create a better image.

In the shower, every drop of

water that touched her skin
tickled. And not in a playful
way. Sunnys body felt alert,
like she was full of excited
bees.

91

Sunny was still

recovering from her
initiation. Her body was
having strange reactions
to what had happened to
it, not used to having this
new part of it.

Use words that mean one thing, and then

turn them into something else to create
specific and different images. You think of
tickling and you think of laughter and fun,
but the author recreates the word to mean
something entirely different.

Sasha looked ready to burst

with pride and excitement.

148

Sasha had just got a

mentor, a person to help

Use real life examples that everyone

knows, and that everyone can relate too. It

So orange, like the abdomen

of a dragonfly.

Sunny wanted to kick him.

People only look like that in
cheesy Disney family movies.

guide him and teach him

to use his powers.

doesnt always have to be poetic. Everyone

know the Disney movie look, so now
everyone can see Sasha with that look.

Chichi made sure to dress up. 200

She wore a nice yellow rapa
with green designs on it and a
yellow shirt. Her short Afro
was brushed out. She even
wore silver hoop earrings.

Chichi was visiting

Sunnys family to help
convince Sunnys mother
to let Sunny sleepover
at her house. In reality,
they needed to sneak off
and go on vacation with
her friends to a place of
Leopard people.

Give the important details, but you can

leave a lot to the imagination. Let the
reader interpret the complete look of
Chichi, and dont bore them with useless
details.

Sunny shouted when she saw 236

Says right arm. It seemed to
be made out of a blue
substance somewhere
between water and mist. At
first it was shaped like an arm,
but as Say rushed at
Miknikstic, it shifted and
morphed.

Sunny and the group

were at a festival for the
Leopard people, and this
was a boxing match.
Each year at the festival
there is a boxing match
between two very
powerful leopard people
to the death.

Again, this mainly just follows the idea of

not using cliches. The reader is interested,
because they were caught off guard. Take
a cliche and turn it around. I tend to use a
lot of cliche, so maybe try to do more
unusual things.

CHAPTER STUFF (Im counting this as one entry)

S Goal
c
e
n
e Conflict

Sunnys goal is to defeat the Black Hat before he can

release Ekwensu, who is evil in solid form, and to
save the lives of two children

Disaster

Even when the Black Hat is defeated, he kills himself,

and it is revealed that there needed one more
sacrifice to release Ekwensu, so even as he died,
Ekwensu started to emerge and terrorize everyone
and bring danger to the world.

S Reaction
e
q
u
e
l
Dilemma

The characters all feel defeated, and hopeless. Some

of the characters are crying, the they think all hope is
lost. Then Sunny and Chichi are trying to wake up
Sasha, just trying to protect him and get him out of
harm's way. Orlu is trying to revive the children.

Black Hat has defenses, and when those fail, he

uses his own juju to fight them off, and may have
killed one of the characters(Sasha). The children are
already dead when they arrive.

Ekwensu is still coming into the world, and all the

characters have no idea what to do. Sunny wants to
fight Ekwensu, but doesnt think she is strong
enough. She is stuck between turning to run or
staying and fighting.

Decision

Sunny decides to fight Ekwensu, the most powerful

evil in the world, even though she might fail.