Adjectives - avoid or use?

https://bookswelove.net/martin-paula/ 

Adjectives

When I was at school (a long time ago!), my English teachers insisted we used lots of adjectives to make our writing more descriptive.  In contrast, writers today are warned against the overuse of adjectives. 

Various reasons are given for this: too many adjectives give your novel a ‘purple prose’ tint, or clutter the text with unnecessary modifiers, or give the impression that the writer cannot quite find the right word.

Mark Twain said: "As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out."

The question is – which adjectives should you strike out?

First there are the redundant adjectives – the tiny kitten (aren’t all kittens tiny?), the large giant (ever seen a small giant?), the narrow alley (an alley IS a narrow passage), the cold snow (if snow wasn’t cold, it would be water!). Omit the adjective if the noun is self-explanatory.

Secondly, there are the adjectives which can be replaced with a much more descriptive word e.g. ‘a downpour flooded the streets’ instead of ‘heavy rain flooded the streets’, or ‘the witch cackled’ instead of ‘the witch gave an evil, sharp laugh’.

There are also some adjectives which have become almost meaningless and should be avoided (except occasionally in dialogue), including wonderful, lovely, gorgeous, stupid, foolish, horrid – and the obvious one, nice.

However, a story without any adjectives could end up as very clinical and dry. As with most things, moderation is the key. We are not advised to avoid adjectives altogether, but to avoid overusing them. Eliminating all adjectives would be as big a mistake as overusing them. Adjectives can clarify meaning and add colour to our writing, and can be used to convey the precise shade of meaning we want to achieve. We should save them for the moments when we really need them and then use them selectively – and sparsely. 

Adjectives should only be used to highlight something the noun can’t highlight. We’ve already seen that the ‘narrow alley’ has a redundant adjective, but what about the ‘dark alley’ or the ‘filthy alley’?  Not all alleys are dark or filthy so in these examples, the adjectives are adding something that is not already shown by the noun. This is the main reason for using an adjective.

And now I'm off to take my own advice and look through my ms. for redundant adjectives!

Find me on Facebook: www.facebook.com/paulamartinromances

Link to my Amazon author page:  author.to/PMamazon  

Sayings by Joan Donaldson-Yarmey

 

 

 https://www.audible.ca/pd/Romancing-the-Klondike-Yukon-Audiobook/B09Y62PLWV?ref=a_series_Ca_c10_lProduct_1_3&pf_rd_p=e54256e9-89bd-44c1-980b-adcad688db4e&pf_rd_r=B5Z5R0XQPVWE3PBDZP1P

https://www.bookswelove.com/donaldson-yarmey-joan/

Be Careful What You Wish For is an old saying with an ominous warning to it and Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining is also an old saying but it has an upbeat tone to it. Both of them apply to my story.

Be Careful What You Wish For

For years women who had had breast cancer surgery were told not to use their arms for any strenuous activity for fear of causing lymphedema, a build up of fluid in the arm. Don McKenzie, a Canadian sports medicine specialist at the University of British Columbia, opposed this idea. In 1996, he formed a dragon boat team composed of 24 women with a history of breast cancer in Vancouver, B.C. They called themselves Abreast in a Boat. And they proved that strenuous exercise was good for their arms and for their overall health.

A few years later, they entered in the Vancouver dragon boat festival and I saw them on the television news. I had never heard of dragon boating before and I said to my husband. "That looks like fun. I'd like to try it sometime."

In January of 2001, I was doing a breast self examination and found a small lump. My annual mammogram at the Breast Centre in Edmonton was scheduled for February but I called the centre and told them my news. They booked me an appointment in two days. Although no one said the C word, after the questions, the mammogram, and the ultrasound, I was pretty sure it was cancer. Then I was told that I needed a biopsy and that it could be scheduled for the next week. However, they added "We have an opening in the next hour and we can do it today." I knew for sure it was cancer.

At my pre-op session a woman came in to tell me about a group of women living with cancer or who had had breast cancer that met every month for coffee and to offer support. I asked her if she knew of a breast cancer survivor dragon boat team in the city. She found the contact information for Breast Friends and two weeks after my surgery I joined the team. I wasn't allowed to get in the boat until three months after my last radiation treatment so I didn't get to actually paddle until 2002. Each summer we practiced on the North Saskatchewan River and attended dragon boat festivals in Alberta and British Columbia.

When I moved to Vancouver Island in the fall of 2004, I joined Angels Abreast in Nanaimo. We practiced in Departure Bay (staying out of the way of the ferries) and on the narrow strait between Vancouver and Newcastle islands. We went to festivals up and down the island and in Vancouver.

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

In 2006, an international festival was held in Vancouver to celebrate the ten year anniversary of breast cancer dragon boating. Besides the teams from Canadian, teams came from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Poland, Italy, and Asia. It was great to walk through the paddler's village and meet fellow survivors from around the world.

In Sept. 2007, another international breast cancer festival was held in Caloundra, Queensland, Australia, and Angels Abreast went to that. What a wonderful time we had. The residents of the city were friendly, the venue was excellent, and the hosts did a great job of organizing. The 100 teams of twenty-four paddlers, steersperson, and drummer paraded through the streets dressed in pink, and many people yelled "Canada" or honked their horns when they saw our Canadian flag hanging from our balconies. The festival lasted three days and again I met many special women. After the festival some of us toured around Queensland and New South Wales. We went out to the Great Coral Reef and even with my fear of heights I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge. From Sydney we flew to Fiji for a week.

The next international festival was held in Sarasota, Florida, on October 24, 25, 26, 2014, and the team decided to attend. The other members were going to fly down, tour around some of the sites and head home. I wanted more than that, so my husband, Mike, and I decided to do a three month tour of the U.S. Since I needed to be in Sarasota by October 22 to practice with the team, we picked September 23 as our leaving date and Dec. 16 as our return date. I applied for and was given three months off work.

We had such a great time touring through nineteen states. In Sarasota I stayed in the hotel with my team for the three day event. Again, such a wonderful venue, although at 6:00am it was dark and cool. Once the sun came up, we warmed up fast.

The last international festival was in Florence Italy in 2018. Again, rather than fly there for just the festival and maybe some local touring, I opted to spend nine weeks in Europe. I did two bus tours, travelled by train and stayed in hostels and hotels for eighteen days and then did a Baltic Sea cruise.

Since my diagnosis I have met so many strong, caring, fun-loving women plus I have visited some awesome places around the world. I am now back living in Edmonton and paddling with Breast Friends again. Only one woman is still with the team from when I paddled here years ago.

I am looking forward to paddling this year and many years to come, the silver lining to my cloud.

With This Ring by Victoria Chatham

 

AVAILABLE HERE

 

Here we are in June, the traditional month for weddings. Who doesn’t love a wedding?

As a romance writer, both historical and contemporary, my books invariably have a wedding in them, either actual or implied. But from where did the tradition of weddings and rings originate?

In ancient Rome, June 1^st was a traditional date for a wedding because it was the day to celebrate Juno, the goddess of marriage, childbirth, and feminine vitality. The wife of the god Jupiter, she was also the protectress of Roman women. Wherever the Romans invaded, their gods and goddesses went with them, so it is unsurprising that June became a popular month for weddings throughout Europe and England.

The Goddess Juno

Back then, personal hygiene was next to non-existent, with bathing considered to cause disease rather than prevent it. The nobility might bathe two or three times a year, while the peasantry might only bathe once yearly to get rid of their winter grime, usually in May. It then made sense to marry in June when everyone smelled better. The scent of the flowers that bloomed in June could mask any lingering or beginning body odours, so brides carried bouquets of sweet-smelling flowers mixed with herbs.

Pregnancy in the first few months of marriage was also a serious consideration. It meant that a wife would still be fit enough to help with the harvest that year and would have had the baby and therefore be fit enough to work in the fields the following year and after that. No such thing as a welfare state or maternity leave in those days.

As for the wedding ring tradition, we apparently have our heavy-browed ancient ancestors, the Neanderthals, to thank for that. They wove twigs or reeds into rings to symbolize commitment. Later, the Ancient Egyptians made rings from bone, ivory, wood, leather, or hemp. Rings were worn on the fourth finger of the left hand as it was thought the vein in that finger connected to the heart. Today science has disproved that theory, but romantically wedding rings are still worn on that finger. Eventually, wedding rings were made from metal and were known as ‘ring money.’ By law, once a woman accepted such a ring, she would then have a claim on her husband’s possessions, a far cry from later times when a woman’s wealth went to her husband.

The Greeks adopted the tradition of giving rings after Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, and then the Romans adopted the custom after they conquered the Greeks. The Romans were a little more romantic as they often marked their rings with the symbol of a key. Like the Ancient Egyptians, a ring indicated the woman’s right to her husband’s possessions, but the key indicated that she had unlocked his heart.  

In Medieval England, getting married was often no more than an agreement between the bride and groom, with the groom giving his intended a ring with no clergy or witnesses involved. This meant that should a dispute arise, either party could dispute the agreement. In the 12^th Century, the Christian Church declared marriage a holy sacrament and established the church ceremony.

St. Cyr's Church, Stonehouse, UK

During the Medieval period in England and Europe, the wealthy began to have rings made from gold, a token that showed a man’s promise was ‘as good as gold.’ To flaunt their wealth, prospective grooms offered their brides gold rings set with rubies representing passion, sapphires representing the heavens, and diamonds denoting steadfast strength. The earliest record of diamonds used in an engagement ring was in 1477.

Today rings for both bride and groom come in many different materials. Gold, white gold, and platinum bands can be embedded with precious stones or not, depending on the couples’ requirements. At one time, the groom gave his wife a ring. Men did not begin to wear wedding rings until WWII as a means of carrying their loved ones with them when they went off to war. Although weddings can and do take place during any month of the year, June is still a most popular month. Were you perhaps a June bride?

 

 

 

 

Victoria Chatham

  AT BOOKS WE LOVE

 ON FACEBOOK

 MY WEBSITE

 

 Images

St Cyr's from author's collection

others free downloads from Pixaby

Small towns and big crimes

 My Pine County series is set in an area blessed with geography that makes it ideal for the mystery genre. As a former Pine County Sheriff said, "The county is half swamp. It's the perfect locale for the disposal of dead bodies." Pine County, in east central Minnesota, is 1,500 square miles of what used to be rocky farms, state forests, and swamps. The farms and farm buildings have fallen into disrepair as it became impossible to eke out a living on a 40-acre family farm tract. The small towns, especially those bypassed by I-35, have shriveled. What's a mystery author to do when most of the towns in the county have a population of less than 300 people?

Well, it is fiction, isn't it? Look at the wonderful British Midsomer Murders television series. They've done a dozen or more episodes a year, all set in fictional Midsomer County. Many episodes kill off 3-5 people. After 22 seasons, I expect the population of Midsomer is down to four cops and the undertaker!

I struggle a bit with the same issue in Pine County. After eight books, I've killed off someone in every large municipality in the county! So, I moved book 9 to the tiny town of Askov. In the early 1900s, it was a bustling community of Danish residents. It's now much smaller, and quieter than during its heyday. I'm not saying it's dead. Not at all. They still host an annual Rutabaga Days Festival on the 4th Saturday in August. A rutabaga queen is crowned, there is a venue selling rutabaga-flavored malted milks (there's always a line, so they must be tasty), and there's a parade. Last year's parade featured several floats, and the sheriff's mounted posse. Interestingly, they had the politicians walk behind the horse-mounted posse, which led to a (sort of) slalom around the horse droppings. Politicians, being focused on shaking hands and kissing babies, didn't always step around all the horse "apples" being deposited in the road. I was initially surprised, then saw the humor in the arrangement.

(7) Askov Rutabaga Festival | Facebook

Anyway, back to the setting: In choosing a very small town, I was forced to invent a business that doesn't exist. Aside from a fictional tire business, every small town has its own characters, rumors, pecking order, and murder motives. Without digging into the affairs of the Askov residents, I created a cast of fictional characters who have all the quirky personalities of any North American small town. There's a salt-of-the-earth farm couple who welcome the police surveillance team into their barn, then nearly blow the whole operation by bringing them coffee and meals. There's a business staffed by white-collar parolees from the local prison (suspects in every local crime). There's a family business with grown children who don't want to work in "dad's" miserable shop. And there are my favorite Pine County Deputies, who are dedicated, smart, a little sassy, and sometimes irreverent. One Arizona reader pointed out that his greatest appreciation of the Pine County Deputies is their ability to consume copious amount of coffee without making any bathroom stops. (I'll have to work on that.)

If you happen to be in Askov at noon on July 16, please stop off at the Pine County Historical Society. They've invited me for Askov's first-ever book reading. Afterwards, tour the exhibits, or drop into the Little Mermaid Cafe for a cup of coffee. 

Writing a Gothic with my Granddaughter, by Diane Scott Lewis

 

To purchase my novels and other BWL books: BWL

I had a crazy idea, since the young adult market is so hot, and my granddaughter loves spooky stories, why don't we create a Gothic novel together? She was thrilled. 

At age twelve Jorja reads at a higher level, and enjoys Anima, and other wild Japanese-inspired cartoons.

She also warned that she tends toward the very macabre. So watch out, Grammie!

I might have to tone her down for the general young adult market, lol

So far we have a title, The Unfortunate Events at Lakelustre House. 

We have the names of the three children who will unveil, or attempt to, the mystery and murders. One child has a connection to the neglected house through a relative.

Jorja picked the state where the creepy mansion is located, Massachusetts. Near Salem, perhaps?

And the basic premise for the beginning of the story.

What will they discover, and what lessons will be learned? If it's for twelve years and up, there should be a lesson.

Now, what is required in a YA Gothic?

And can I rein in my modern granddaughter's macabre imagination?

According to an article by Amanda Pagan, Children's Librarian at the New York Public Library: "the overarching genre is generally defined by a focus on bleak, creepy, and unsettling settings and characters." and "Rooted in the traditions set forth by Edgar Allan Poe, Ann Radcliff and Bram Stoker, young adult gothic fiction features tales of terror and romance aimed at a teen audience."

I doubt my granddaughter will agree to the 'romance' part. (wink); and the main characters will only be twelve and thirteen.

The important thing, other than a riveting novel, is spending quality time with my oldest grandgirl. 

The only other Gothic-like novel I've written is A Savage Exile, vampires with Napoleon on St. Helena. And I enjoyed delving into the macabre.

Now to drag that girl away from her phone and get writing!

Diane lives in Western Pennsylvania with her husband and one naughty dachshund.

To find out more about her and her books:  DianeScottLewis