Adjectives are often regarded as the magic weapon of literary style. In order to make the expression beautiful, we are used to bothering to modify the sentence and list the beautiful sentences. But some writers say that the greatest talent is not to use adjectives! Is that really the case?
Let's take a break from adjectives and see how well they are expressed?
If you give a holiday to "adjectives".
Be concise and clear enough
When using adjectives, if you deliberately pursue the ornate rhetoric, the complexity of the expression, or even describe for the sake of description, it often has the opposite effect and obscures the backbone of the expression.
In many cases, it is good enough to be simple and coherent.
For example, if you want to write about clear water, it is easy to think of "clear", "clear" and "crystalline", how clear is it? It's still very vague.
Liu Zongyuan wrote in "The Story of Little Stone Pond":
The fish in the pool can have a hundred heads, all of them are like empty swimming and nowhere to go, the sun is clear, and the shadow is on the stone.
The picture comes from the Internet
There are hundreds of fish in the water, as if suspended in mid-air, the sun shines directly on the bottom of the water, and the fish shadow is reflected on the stone. Not a single adjective, but the water is clear? The fish tells you, the light and shadow tell you, and the picture sense of the text tells you, and you will naturally remember the appearance of the water after reading.
Use verbs and nouns well to double the effect
Adjectives are used to modify nouns and verbs, and belong to auxiliary words, and in writing, the precise use of verb nouns can also see writing skills and life experience.
Writer John Gardner said in "Becoming a Novelist" that a clever storyteller will not directly write "she feels uncomfortable", but will express the extremely subtle emotional changes of the character through precise movements.
Take the passage in Zhu Ziqing's "Back" as an example:
I saw him wearing a black cloth hat, a black cloth coat, and a dark blue cloth cotton robe, staggering to the side of the railway, and slowly leaning down, it was not too difficult. But it was not easy for him to cross the railroad and climb up to the platform over there. He climbed on it with his hands and retracted his feet again; His fat body leaned slightly to the left, showing the appearance of hard work, and then I saw his back, and my tears quickly flowed.
The picture comes from the Internet
There is no fancy description, just through a few simple verbs such as "exploration", "climbing", "climbing", "shrinking" and "leaning", it is a powerful string of images of the old father struggling on the platform, concise and expressive, which makes people think of their elderly father's behavior and habits, and only when they know how to empathize, tears will naturally "flow down" with the author.
Let's look at the effect of using good nouns.
In order to pursue a strong artistic conception, our ancients did not use adjectives, or even verbs, and used nouns to set off a full atmosphere, such as:
Wen Tingyun's "Chicken Sound Maodian Month, Traces of Banqiao Frost". Land tour's "building boat night snow melon island crossing, iron horse autumn wind dispersed". He Zhu's "a Sichuan tobacco, the city is full of wind and flocculents, and the plum is yellow and rainy".
The names of ordinary things, through the author's artistic combination, will heavily render the extraordinary atmosphere.
The picture comes from the Internet
Character-like screen feel
If it must be "blue" when it meets the sky, it must be "blazing" when it meets fire, and it must be "cute" when it encounters small animals, it is not an effort to portray, it is lazy, and it is a description of compromise.
Good expression, try to draw a sense of picture and immersive environment, as Chekhov said, don't tell me the moonlight is bright, let me see the light shining on the broken glass!
For example, if you write about the sunset, if you say, "The sun is about to set, and the sky is red, and the gentle light spreads over the earth, bringing peace and joy to the people." ”
"Hongtongtong", how red is it? "Serenity and joy" is too vague for people to empathize with.
The picture comes from the Internet
Here's what the writer Ah Cheng wrote:
The sun hung between the two mountains, the river rolled like gold, and the stones on the shore turned red like hot iron. Birds skimmed across the water, and their calls were heard far away. Someone on the other side was protracting and shouting mountain songs, but there was no shadow, only that the voice was slowly quieter.
A sentence and a scene, the sunset, the river, the distant mountains, like a picture scroll spread out one after another, which is more impressive than adding various adjectives in front of the main body.
Mobilize the senses! Mobilize the senses!
Compared with stacking adjectives, when describing a picture, a more brilliant expression is to mobilize various synaesthesia in the text.
For example, if you want to write about the feeling of "hot", you can say "the sun is blazing", "the sun is scorching", and "the heat is unbearable", but these are all decent and expected descriptions.
How can it be "different and just the reader's feelings"? Let's take a look at the attempt of netizen @ a fresh little donkey:
The shade of the trees is not dense, and the light spots imprint through the gaps in the leaves on my legs, back, and arms (vision), causing a noticeable burning sensation of water loss (tactility), and the sound of cicadas in the near distance and cars running over the road in the distance is heavy and inevitable into everyone's ears (hearing).
The picture comes from the Internet
Without the blessing of too many adjectives, just from the perspective of sight, hearing, and touch, it is refreshing to read.
This also makes us wonder why many writers can write more realistically without using or using fewer adjectives.
Observing, thinking, demanding oneself almost harshly - what to capture, what to portray, what to express, this is something more important than literary style.
There is no best adjective
But there is a good writing spirit
People and things are changing and diverse, and the adjectives at that time may be appropriate, but with the adjustment of the environment and the improvement of cognition, they may lose their original effectiveness.
It's hard to find adjectives that define things once and for all. What we can do is to write with enthusiasm for writing, write persistently and seriously, constantly explore new ways of expression, and express our feelings at the moment sincerely and without pretentiousness.
The phrase "insisting on writing" is the best description of a writer.
| CCTV News "Night Reading" compilation
Source: WeChat public account "Reading and Success"
Editor: Pan Xi
[Disclaimer: This number is the official public welfare account of "National Reading Promotion", and this article is reprinted for the purpose of conveying more information. If there is a source label error or other inaccuracies, please contact us. We will correct it in a timely manner. Thank you]