Ok, I'm trying to do this week's CW course homework, which includes a writing exercise in Setting the Scene. Along with including similies, metaphors and the five senses, we also have to:
"bring in adjectives in pairs or groups of three".
I have no idea what the tutor means by this. Can anyone give me an example or two?



- NaomiM

Dunno, sorry Naomi. But now i have this cute little image of a little tea party, with little pairs of adjectives sitting with each other, shyly watching the rest of the group. Some of the more noisy ones are in 3s, and every now and then another pair come in through the back door, and take off their shoes, and nudge each other towards the main table.

The similes are encouraging the shy ones, and serving up orange squash, and checking on the more noisy ones, while the metaphors are in the living room getting all the party games ready.

The fives senses are in the garden setting up a treasure hunt. Hmm, I sense some tension there - better leave before an argument breaks out . . .

Ah, Poppy, that's lovely.

I wonder if teach means the sort of thing Bellow does a lot. Opening my copy of Herzog at a random page I found this sort of stuff:

"This brought him to consider his character. What sort of character was it? Well, in the modern vocabulary, it was narcissistic; it was masochistic; it was anachronistic."

or

"A provoking thing about Edvig was that he behaved as if he were the one with all the news-this calm Protestant Nordic Anglo-Celtic Edvig with his grizzled little beard, clever, waving, mounting hair, and glasses, round, clean and glittering."

Why use two adjectives when you can find five?

~Rod.

P.S Down with the CW rules.

Lol! Poppy,


Thanks, Rod. I'm still confused, though. I find it difficult to believe she simply means stringing a number of adjectives together in a single sentence...


- NaomiM

A mutinous, mould-shattering, adjectivally-advancing writing teacher. I love him/her.

(Sorry)

<Added>

p.s Men can understand books written by women.

p.s Men can understand books written by women.

Is this a reference to my comment on the other thread?

Yes.

Men may understand them, but that doesn't necessarily mean they like them...anyway, it was more a comment about how the brains of the two genders are wired up differently, not whether one sex understands what the other has written, per se.


- NaomiM

STOP IT, you two, or you'll go to your rooms and not be allowed to play together any more.

How great to have a CW teacher who bucks the trend and actually LIKES adjective overload. Next you'll be told to stick in extra adverbs!

Rosy

Lol! Rosy.

Yes, the tutor is a great one for descriptive words, adjectives, adverbs, similies, metaphors, etc: adding colour and texture to the prose, which is good practice for me since I tend to forget to put them in. I get the impression she thinks they will help us to avoid slipping into tell-mode - although she means info dumps, rather than telling, per se.
However, she forgot she had given us this particular piece of homework the previous lesson, so I'll have to wait until next week to find out exactly what she means by it.



- NaomiM

Hi Naomi,

Might it mean something like Nick's description of Gatsby standing on the steps of his mansion in his 'gorgeous pink rag' of a suit.

THAT is how to use adjectives in my opinion. It's a literary phwoar. Every word working its heart out with all the commie and homosexual undertones that denote Gatsby's misfit status whilst also simply physically describing him. I love grouped adjectives anyway and all the more for being so unfashionable right now.

Susannah

Ah, Cherys that example does make a lot of sense. Thanks

Yes but, Rosy . . .

Feminine writing, in comparison, appeals to different parts of the brain, and its nuances are largely lost on the men.