As with yesterday, today we will be colliding nouns with adjectives to steer our minds in new and interesting directions. Again I will be giving you a list of adjectives to choose from, but this time you will have completely free reign over which noun you select. You can choose literally any noun in the dictionary, but take some time to find an interesting and productive collision.
Adjectives:
I look forward to reading what you can come up with!
Boastful Piano, standing at attention against the back wall. Accusingly magnetized, drawing dust to settle on you. With no one on your bench, you somehow synthesize my mother’s whisper, “I told you you’d never learn that, you just don’t have the passion”. The smell of spruce boisterously slaps me in the face, reminding me of its unused presence. I feel the tension pushing against my fingers on the keys, careful only to touch the black ones, I have not earned the right to frolic among the ivories, hyper-extending the top knuckle of my index and ring fingers on my left hand, or what the still glossy new book perched atop reminds me should be called “2” and “4” fingers. I randomly jolt forward, slamming two black keys, the dissonance resonates deep through my lungs. Before my mom comes to visit, I will use feathers to degausse the braggadocious demon and eliminate the threat of judgement, simply shiny wood with grains smiling. I will blame the horror on strings detuned from overplaying. Piano, don’t smirk like you’re holier than me. Once the visit is over, I will not use a coaster and leave my liquid circle brand on your face. Everyone will know your cardinal sin: pride, and I will diminsh it, make you unworthy of others and yourself, slowly over time.
Dark Coffee
Fog refuses to lift from my eyes, heavy vision and shortened breath. Stumbling like a newly initiated zombie seeking the next hit. Dark coffee, a deity of energy and aliveness. The scent of hard, harshly underpaid labour hit me, like a whip of a coffee bean plantation owner. Fine, revitalising dust pouring, a black waterfall of both joy and misery. Birds outside sing beautiful melodies to greet the morning, but it sounds like a screaming match until the caffeine begin coursing through my veins, forcing an already overworked heart to push itself to the brink of exhaustion.
I’m a big fan of this line, not sure why though but could be because thats how I feel every-time I sit down at my piano hahaha! And I liked the way it was a sort of you vs the piano feel gives a twist to the normal “instrument and musician becoming one” we tend to lean into.
This is great. First you have the fog (I pictured a horror movie setting) going on internally, then you have the zombie reference, then the contrast of dark coffee being the god of energy! That transition is really well done. Then the tension of craving with an addict’s need and feeling enslaved to it, while also admiring the effects of the coffee. That tension is held through the entire writing. The auditory cue “birds” is an amazing example of holding an internal tension from an external stimulus. Love it.
Careful truth
Careful truth tiptoes between the syllables. She lies in the dark edges of your eyes, she slips into shadows between your heart and your gut. She expands with your diaphragm. She communes with each shaky, forceful breath, praying that when you exhale she might come rushing out to embrace the open air like a homeland. She might undress in the moonlight, or bathe in the sun, or adorn herself with flowers and songbirds. Careful truth, ever the wallflower, sitting politely in the darkness, waits her turn.
I like how the piano and the mother are a sort of mirror for each other and the tension is palpable with your word choices “slap” “jolt” “dissonance” etc. keep the conflict alive. I like the “liquid circle brand on your face” a lot. I think “with no one on your bench” could be replaced with a better phrase like “your vacant bench somehow synthesizes” or “abandoned bench” or the like. Really fun to read! Nice job
I like the different “dark” scenes you tied in the expand the meaning of dark coffee, like zombies, underpaid labor, slavery, black waterfall, nice job weaving all those concepts together to talk about coffee in a way that felt pretty seamless. This is super good!
Unreal!
The way you blend the careful truth into the being themselves is incredible! And the way it’s written makes the truth almost sound deceptive waiting in the darkness for her turn. Really beautiful stuff
I love that abandoned bench phrase! Thank you for your feedback. I thought I got a little "tell-y"during some of it, and this really helps.
The personification of truth is interesting, especially with your use of second person point of view. It almost brings an ominous warning type of feel. The flow of the language is really interesting, being the shadow between your heart and gut, and then feeling the internal expansion of the diaphragm (which is right there!). That is interesting, almost foreshadowing, and feeding that warning feeling. And then, the way the foreboding becomes almost a lie-in-wait to reveal something positive is a great way to mess with the expectations of the reader. Rather than the warning being for something dangerous, it is a warning of potential beauty that comes with the truth. Really like it!
Pianos really do take on a personifiable presence in the rooms that they stand in, and I like this moment of relationship with it that you have captured. I know I have felt everything along the spectrum from the fullest love to the most fractured levels of resentment toward my piano, so it is a big field which you have dived into successfully sensually - great work!
I feel your writing has become tangibly more sensory based Hugh, which is fantastic! I like how you are marrying these abstract concepts like the joy and misery with vivid scents and imagery, like the black waterfall of coffee dust. The screaming match and the overworking heart capture the internal sensations of caffeine very effectively - well done!
This is outstanding writing Maddie! The way you have painted truth is so original and yet the themes you are pointing to come across as so familiar, which I think is what the whole objective of art is - fantastic stuff!
Dark Eyes
I feel the heat of her laser focused stare, piercing right through me. I shift slightly to avert my field of vision. “How are you?” she asks, brazenly, while inching toward me. I feel a shiver run up my spine. I can’t contort myself away from her aggressive collision. I lift my eyes slightly to see the corners of her lips upturned, as though she’s forcing a smile. Her lips are thin and cartoon-like, and bone dry, and her eyes are grey and empty. I wonder if she can hear my heart beating violently. She places an unwelcome clammy hand on my back, and I think it’s searing my skin… “Are you mad at me?” She asks. My knees are jello, and I’m visibly trembling at this point. I open my mouth slowly, and exert all the energy I have left to respond… “No, of course not.” I see her jaw muscles tensing, and her nostrils widen. She inhales one long breath, then takes her hand off my back, hovering it over my shirt for a lingering moment. “Okay” she said. “Just checking in.”
@WLDFLOW3R I really like the narrative here. It is very interesting and really had me in the character’s place. However, there are some points where your use of adverbs kind of start falling into the “tell” rather than the “show”. This is a very common thing (and one that I am victim of often). Sometimes when we overuse adjectives and adverbs, we remove freedom for the reader/listener to be brought into the world we create. For instance, you say she asked “brazenly”. This is ok, but the protagonist has just shifted “slightly” in the line before. So, is there something in the antagonist that made the protagonist perceive the brazenness? Did she ask with “steel in her voice”? Did she ask with “lasers dripping from her tongue”? In a few sentences, you “lift your eyes slightly”. What it seems is happening is that the protagonist is “sheepish” and that comes through. But maybe you could show it by saying something like “our eyes were similarly polarized magnets, repelling my attempts to glance upward.” (I know I used “similarly” in the example, but it is not describing the actions of the characters, but the image). Then, the heart beats “violently”. Again, you have an opportunity to describe why the heart is beating so hard. “I wonder if she sees the prisoner in my chest pounding at the bars of the rib prison, attempting escape” - this gives a desperate-type feel. Or “I wonder if she can feel my heart growling, groaning, hissing towards unknowing prey” - This one would make it a little more angry. “Visibly trembling” is kind of similar. Most trembling is visible, so what are you trying to get the reader to experience here? I am not saying avoid adverbs or adjectives, but if we can train ourselves to use them purposefully, we invite the reader/listener to place themselves empathically into our world.
Again, this is really great writing, and I love the scene. But as start taking these ideas and putting them in song form, things like overusing adverbs can become a hindrance. Great job, and keep it up!
I know I say this a lot, but I really do appreciate the feedback. So, what you’re saying is that I should try to cut back on the adverbs by “showing.” I think I was trying to show by using adverbs. 
I can certainly work on that moving forward, and really appreciate the advice. Writing is very new to me, and even some of these basic concepts are still things I’m trying to wrap my head around. I understand emotion, and explaining a feeling, but doing it with form and structure and restraint is difficult. I appreciate this site and all the interaction I’ve gotten from you guys. I wish there was an in person version of this!
You are doing great! And yes, it is not that adverbs and adjectives are bad at all. It’s just that often they begin to to stray toward telling rather than showing. Think about it like this: (Adjective example) “She is beautiful” vs “Her hair is soft seaweed floating to her shoulders inviting the suitors to rest and feast in its safety, her eyes were lures glistening on waves of ivory skin.” I am not saying that is the best writing, and it is certainly wordy, but it invites the reader to be a part of scene. (Adverb example): “She speaks boldly” vs “Her voice thundered across the chasm, echoes reverberating within the caves on the faces of cliffs. The audience was hypnotized, the way each syllable was precise. A master forging concepts bewteen their mallei and incudes, spiraling into glory within cochleae.” Again, these are just examples that I came up with really quickly, but hopefully they demonstrate a little how images can really engage the listener. In song form, there are going to be times when adverbs and adjectives are the right fit, but in our exploring mode, it is good to reach out broadly.
Cautionary note: You can see that I wrote a lot in the example, and the main criticism I draw from others (rightfully so) on this site is my lack of conciseness. So, take my advice with a grain of salt, but it is definitely something worth exploring and see if you like the results.
Boastful Beauty
In broad strokes, their looks are loud. Strutting into the room, any gravity circling is sucked into them, a black hole as radiant as the sun. One longs for a taste, and they know it, their champagne to the brim beauty gives everyone a sip, leaving everyone sick and unsatisfied. They brush by, a comb seeking out any hair who doesn’t know they’re there, their attitude suffocating.
Nice work David! great way of describing individuals without ever saying there was a person involved. The beauty being a champagne filled to brim giving everyone a sip and making them sick is fantastic! As to is the black hole as radiant as the sun! definitely captures the attention seekers at parties I’ve been to.