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On one of my visits to Ireland - and with the Johnny Cash song in mind - my friend and I challenged ourselves to actually name 'forty shades of green'. The first dozen or so were fairly easy, but by the time we got into the 30s, we were struggling to come up with 'genuine' names and not ones we invented!
Quite often, when I'm writing, I have to search for colour names. Wikipedia has a good list, but I’ve also searched paint colour charts, make-up and fashion sites, and hair colourant lists to find the right word(s) to describe the colour I can see in my mind’s eye.
I admit I do like the synonyms which show the slight differences: for yellow, there’s daffodil, flax, lemon and mustard; for red there’s fire-engine, ruby, crimson, scarlet etc etc. At the same time, I tend to think the standard names for colours are the best, since everyone knows what they mean. No point describing the heroine’s dress as ‘
Colour 'cliches' can sometimes be boring – how many times have
we read ‘eyes as blue as the sky' or 'hair as black as ebony'? Contrived, long-winded or eyebrow-raising similes can be equally
irritating. Recently I've seen a couple of examples
describing hair – ‘as blonde as a buttercup in a meadow’ (does that mean bright yellow?) and ‘as blonde as a dirty cloud’ (what? was she grey?)
Just as a matter of interest, did you know
that, in early colonial times in America, Puritans used no similes or metaphors
in their writing, because these glorified the writer, not God. In contrast, Southerners often used showy language in literature much more freely. Maybe I was a Puritan in an earlier existence,
since I prefer to keep colour descriptions simple!
I once read a story where the author had obviously decided
to use every possible variation of blue for the heroine’s eyes – cerulean,
baby-blue, azure, sky-blue, denim, electric, sapphire etc – so much so that I
got distracted from the story wondering what shade of blue the eyes would be on
the next page!
As with many things, sometimes
less is more!
That's really funny about the author and shades of blue--especially since they are all different! I think one name is best and maybe a comparison or two to something well-known so that the reader can picture it. But beyond that, it's too much.
ReplyDeleteI agree.
DeleteMaybe the eyes looked a different shade of blue in different lights? :-D
That's a lot of light. Maybe the author should start describing sunglasses. ;)
DeleteLOL! Or maybe the author should stop using a thesaurus?
DeleteThat too!
DeleteSo interesting, Paula. I guess there's that balance of repetition and trying to be creative and new without going overboard. I agree, if no one knows what the color reference means, it's a waste of the author's words.
ReplyDeleteThat's too funny that you were 'tallying' all of the different ways the author described blue.
It seems we have to avoid both colour 'cliches' and over-ornate descriptions!
DeleteI became so amazed by the author's various eye descriptions that I actually went back and made a list of them all! :-)
Oh, and there were various similes too, which I didn't note down!
DeleteMy Flip Dictionary has long lists for colors. So many browns and reds, blues and yellows. Most I would need to look up to comprehend the shade of the color.
ReplyDeleteIn an early draft of my time travel, I used every option of dagger--skean, bodkin, etc. I discovered this when I went back through the text to write a synopsis recently. Amateurish, for sure.
Most times, it's better to keep it simple! And also avoid synonyms that wouldn't mean anything to the average reader. Language is a wonderful thing, but only if readers understand it!
DeleteI found that a really useful post - not only on how to describe colours but how not to!
ReplyDeleteYes, knowing how not to is sometime more important than knowing how to!
Delete