Of Adjectives, Anniversaries, and Amphitheaters
A good teacher will advise that you limit using adjectives in creative writing: Tell your story with verbs. Don’t say, “Her footsteps were soft”; say, “She tiptoed.”
However, sometimes, you just need adjectives, especially in romance novels. How else do you know what the hero and heroine look like? What their food tastes like? What their town activities sound like? One book I read recently described the heroine’s eyes as lavender. Although I thought it was a brilliant switch from the standard blue, brown, and green—and variations thereof—I believed the writer had gone too far with that purple-related adjective. A week later, I was dining with a friend and suddenly noticed her lovely lavender eyes. Not only does that color of eye exist, but I’m glad the writer pointed it out.
When using adjectives, whether to describe that wavy, surfer-dude hair or that grapefruit-scented perfume, be sure to use hyphens, when appropriate, for clarity. Two- or three-word adjectival phrases before a noun often need hyphens. As an example, here’s an excerpt from A Midnight Clear at Christmas, when the heroine, Bailey, first meets the hero, Tanner:
Opening one eye but making no other move from her near-flat-on-her-back position in a lounge chair by the pool, Bailey tried to focus. Because the head of the man standing above her directly covered the sun, his face was hidden in shadow, but she was pretty sure she recognized the untamed, blond-brown hair fluttering in the breeze. She didn’t know him, but she had seen him around the cruise ship these past few days, chatting with the staff and the other guests.
She closed her eye. “You’re blocking the sun.”
Without the first set of hyphens, the phrase “her near flat on her back position” would have been difficult to read. Her near flat? Was that a reference to a British apartment? Was the apartment on her back position? What’s a back position? And “blond-brown” describes Tanner’s hair as a combination of the two colors. “Blond brown hair” would have made the reader ask, “Is it blond, or is it brown?”
My editing team at “my real job” likes to hyphenate compound phrases before a noun when the first word of the phrase is the adverb “more”: for example, more-efficient workers and more-expensive technology. I like that guideline. Otherwise, instead of the former meaning workers who are more efficient, “more efficient workers” (without the hyphen) might mean that you have increased the number of efficient workers.
Unlike the serial comma I covered last month, which I believe should be applied consistently, the hyphenation of “compound prenomial adjectives” is up to the writer’s discretion. For example, I do not hyphenate “high school student” because I’m pretty sure readers aren’t assuming I am talking about school students who have smoked too much weed. 😊
On another linguistic note, Hubby and I just returned from a trip-of-a-lifetime vacation (see what I did there!) to Greece to celebrate our fortieth wedding anniversary. In addition to feeding my love for Biblical history and mythology, our tour guides taught us a little linguistics lesson: Did you know that “amphi” in Greek means “around”? Thus, an amphitheater must be a complete circle. All those half-circle theaters that I’ve always called “amphitheaters” are really, well, “theaters.”
Speaking of A Midnight Clear at Christmas (see above), I plan to do a five-day free-e-book promotion for the book in July. I’ll write about it in the next blog.
Be sure comment below to let me know what you think about adjectives, hyphens, or amphitheaters! And sign up for my newsletter at the bottom of my home page.
Eye photo © 123RF Free Images