How Fiction Works Writing Meme - Day Fourteen

[meridian_rose]

14 - Thisness and the written word: Do you ever use abstract descriptions in specifying little details? Given an object or interaction a sense of "thisness"? For example, "the clouds were glassy in the sky." Clouds cannot literally have a quality like glass, yet in this sentence they have been given a sense of "glassness" that gives the reader a more specific description of them, and somehow maintains an air of believability. Discuss why this is a believable description, though it is not actually possible.

Why is it believable? Because we understand metaphor, and because language is imperfect. Sometimes the wrong words are the only ones we have to describe something – think of the words that exist in other languages that have no equivalent in your own native tongue. Sometimes the wrong words are more appropriate than the technically right ones – I want to see the clouds in a way that is appropriate to the tone of the novel, not in a way that's only suitable in a meteorological textbook.

I just read a beautiful entry over at lj_scribe by somehowunbroken about a woman who may or may not be a vampire: He thinks she looks like danger - sharp and taut, wicked smile gracing her face like a knife slash, long and lean and lithe. Someone cannot look like danger, a smile does not really look like a knife wound, and yet this description is delicious and chilling and appropriate for the ficlet.

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I'll make an index post when I've completed the meme with links to all my answers; they will all be tagged #how fiction works meme. You can find the full set of questions at pristineungift's entry:here

Comments

[hrhrionastar.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the wrong words are more appropriate than the technically right ones – I want to see the clouds in a way that is appropriate to the tone of the novel, not in a way that's only suitable in a meteorological textbook. Agreed - and that vampire example definitely fits ;D

[meridian_rose]

I thought it was a lovely description, very evocative :D