Blog Archive

Tuesday 12 April 2011

THE SIGNIFICANT DETAIL

How to create a view of something, somewhere, someone without having to explain it or 'spell it out'.   What about this from P G Wodehouse?


The butler entered the room, a solemn procession of one.






Consider green eyes.   




How to do get at the 'wriggly' different shades of green?Some 'green'
eyes are less brilliant than this and merge into 'hazel', and perhaps that's commoner, and for these the image of tangled  pond weeds seems more appropriate.   The temptation is to 
go for some precious stone image,  where the connotations might themselves be too 'precious' -  emerald eyes (or is it 'isle'?).     Or you could go for marbles!   Or, taking the pupil to be a whole, those minds with a whole in the middle.     'Eyes as green as grass' has a nice earthy feel to it.    My own eyes are green to hazel and of course most bewitches, although the image of 'pond weed' could be modified (in some people's mind's) to 'pond slime' perhaps - a sort of irresistible one-night-stand and-run-aura, perhaps - (well in the green eye of the beholder in the mirror)

An image for the lashes?   Anything but spiders.








2 comments:

  1. Frayed edges of black jeans? Clumps of iron filings attracted to a magnet? Soot coverered cobwebs?

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Her black jeans were beginning to fray at the edges, as if her ankles were sprouting eyelashes."

    (Many years ago I had a writing tutor who encouraged us to "reverse your similes and see what falls out.")

    ReplyDelete