Category: 1984

Little Women, 1984, and a Little Woman

Little Women, Little Woman, Louisa May Alcott Our home is full of great books. Though I’m the writer, my wife is far better read and has by far the bigger collection of great literature. One of her favorites has long been Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Her love of Little Women has been reinforced because we have four daughters.

One of our daughters found my wife’s battered, tattered and beloved copy the other day, and it happened when a camera was handy…

Like mother, like daughter(s).

After Little Women, she read Orwell’s 1984.

Like father, like daughter. 😉

Descriptive Writing, Agency, Telling Details, and Adjectives

Writing, Grammar, Grammarly, Ginger, telling detail, writing tips, writing craft, agency, descriptions in fiction, descriptions, how to write descriptions, good descriptions, powerful descriptions, compelling descriptions, memorable descriptions, description words, description synonym, agency in writing, descriptive writing, agency in fiction, creative writing workshop, critique group, Emma Darwin, adjectives, adverbs

Descriptive Writing

As I continue to edit my work in progress and think about meeting readers’ expectations, especially when it comes to descriptive writing, I recently came across and interesting review of Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read, “a book that explores how people imagine and remember the things they read.”

I’ve always been loath to write (and dislike reading) detailed descriptions of characters and settings. I’m OK with details that surface as the story progresses when they are relevant, but one of the fastest ways for me to lose interest in a book or story is a front-loaded block of description sentences which have no other purpose, and an abundance of adjectives and adverbs. She was tall and had green eyes. She stepped over the puddles with her long legs while smiling at Bob, showing off her perfect, white teeth… Ugh.

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