Celebrate the small things: salt and pepper

When teaching my students how to improve their writing, one of the things I stress is the importance of adjectives and adverbs. I explain to them that adjectives add information to nouns and adverbs add information to verbs. Without them, adjectives especially, writing can be dull, and the one thing you don't want as a writer is to bore your readers. I tell them that adjectives and adverbs add flavour to their writing. Without descriptive language, writing can taste very bland to the reader's palate. (with more advanced learners I can also discuss metaphorical language as exemplified by my previous sentence.)

I recently chose a book based on the title and the blurb. Had I also read the first chapter or even the first few pages, I would not have bought it. Why? As far as descriptive and metaphorical language goes, it was a desert. I won't name the book here, but I did, after much deliberation, review it on Goodreads with a rating of two stars. I read through it quickly without feeling engaged or especially interested at any point. At first, I didn't know why, and then I figured it out. Aside from other faults, like excessive use of passive voice, it lacked descriptive language. I might be wrong, but I don't think there was a single metaphor or simile to be found between its covers. 


Quickly moving on to the next novel, I was immediately relieved. To continue my desert metaphor from above, I had made it to an oasis where I was able to jump in to beautiful literary writing, full of wonderful descriptive passages and powerful metaphors. My soul was refreshed after just one chapter of The Water Horse by Julia Gregson.

That is also the reason I love classic novels so much: they feature such beautiful and fascinating language, as well as unusual and complex sentence structures.

So today I am thankful for adjectives, adverbs and metaphors: salt and pepper, and mushroom sauce on my reading steak. 

Nice #atozchallenge

"The cigarette is very nice, soothing. The ease with which I have fallen back into addiction is unsurprising and does not bother me. Something about the action of inhaling, feeling the burn at the back of the throat and the constriction in my chest, followed by the leisurely exhale of smoke causes a very pleasant, if momentary delirium."   - Chapter 34

"Perhaps she doesn’t want me to quit, otherwise why keep seeing me? She could simply say no. Is she just being nice? Is she playing with me? Is she using me to assuage her loneliness or to amuse herself? These are all possibilities which I must consider, but ultimately what difference does it make? If she doesn’t answer my questions, and I am learning fast how unwilling women are to answer ‘why’ questions, I am left to speculate and be fascinated by the riddle."

- Chapter 26

"He might have suspected sabotage, but as he and Joanne had shared, according to Belinda, some non-professional interactions in the workplace, he would have been left with the helpless feeling of not being able to explain where those files had been. The immediate relief of finding them would have been very quickly replaced by the agony of ignorance.

‘Aren’t you pleased Cassy?’ asked Belinda."

‘It was a nice trick.’

Emma smiled wryly and glanced purposefully at the other members of the coven. ‘You feel sorry for him, don’t you?’

‘No,’ snapped Cassy."

- Chapter 35

"‘I guess I could come over after work on Tuesday.’

There’s little enthusiasm in Angus’ voice and I know he’s inwardly cursing me, but he’s a nice guy and he doesn’t want to make trouble. I realize I’ve overlooked this weakness of his, and brushed it over with complimentary epithets. Angus is a yes man. He is afraid of confrontation. Always worried about disappointing people, so he says yes all the time, and apologizes profusely even when contrition is not only unnecessary, but actually inappropriate.

‘Thank you for making time for me.’

I’m baiting him now, and why not?"

- Chapter 36

I use the adjective nice sixty times in Lovesick. It may well be an overused and bland word for which there exists a plethora of synonyms, but it's still a pretty nice adjective.

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