Simple Descriptions
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Skipping Letters for Thursday because my brain is pickled...and by pickled, I mean pregnant. I have pregnant brain, and apparently, this time around that means my creative juices are at a minimum. :)
Our newspaper featured an article this past weekend. Of course, it caught our eye--and our neighbor's eye--because it referred to the blind. Woman Reads Playboy for Blind Radio Audience
Strange topic, I know. And I'm not advocating Playboy...
But I just have to comment on the way she uses description. It's very simple, concise. Not superfluous at all. She doesn't exaggerate the obvious. For example, "She is a 'Latina, brunette with dark chocolate brown eyes. She has long curly brown hair. She is in the first photo sitting in the ocean. Behind her shoulder, down past her arm, you can see her breast peeking out. ... There are no tan lines at all. She is not wearing any nail polish or jewelry or bathing suit or anything." That almost sounds like a police write up. Maybe some young, immature thing might get a kick out of the word breast... but don't worry, he'll grow out of that...and she'll probably grow out of hers! LOL :D *cough* anyhoo. *whistle*
I think there's something to be said for keeping it simple. As a fiction reader, and particularly one who reads romance, sometimes the effort to describe something that is at its core pretty darn basic can get tedious.
Next time you're tempted to flower your manuscript with purple prose [passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response], remember the playboy reader, and how, even without innuendo, she could draw the attention of thousands of blind listeners with every broadcast.
Our newspaper featured an article this past weekend. Of course, it caught our eye--and our neighbor's eye--because it referred to the blind. Woman Reads Playboy for Blind Radio Audience
Strange topic, I know. And I'm not advocating Playboy...
But I just have to comment on the way she uses description. It's very simple, concise. Not superfluous at all. She doesn't exaggerate the obvious. For example, "She is a 'Latina, brunette with dark chocolate brown eyes. She has long curly brown hair. She is in the first photo sitting in the ocean. Behind her shoulder, down past her arm, you can see her breast peeking out. ... There are no tan lines at all. She is not wearing any nail polish or jewelry or bathing suit or anything." That almost sounds like a police write up. Maybe some young, immature thing might get a kick out of the word breast... but don't worry, he'll grow out of that...and she'll probably grow out of hers! LOL :D *cough* anyhoo. *whistle*
I think there's something to be said for keeping it simple. As a fiction reader, and particularly one who reads romance, sometimes the effort to describe something that is at its core pretty darn basic can get tedious.
Next time you're tempted to flower your manuscript with purple prose [passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response], remember the playboy reader, and how, even without innuendo, she could draw the attention of thousands of blind listeners with every broadcast.
