Adjective Alert

2 Mar 2021

rf: Came across this on a publishers submission guideline page. There's nothing revolutionary are even new, but the subject seemed well presented. Any comments, whether brickbats or bouquets, are welcome.

X X X

Take It Easy on the Adjectives
Many romance and erotica authors make the mistake of loading up their sentences with adjectives. They do so believing that the more colorful descriptions they use, the more sultry their erotic scenes will sound.

But too many adjectives in a short space of time can make you sound desperate. It can also force the readers to pause and ponder the meaning of your exotic vocabulary. They may also have to work harder to visualize so many attributes at once.

You don’t need to load up your sentences with descriptions to tell an amazing story. If you want your readers to experience your characters’ sensations, spend more time investing in their backstory. Set a proper scene, and build up to the erotic encounter.

Here are some examples of what we mean.

Acceptable Amount of Adjectives
“His hard manhood grazed her posterior. He reached down to the hem of her shirt and slowly pulled it up and off of her, freeing her breasts.”

Unacceptable Amount of Adjectives
“His hard, aching manhood grazed her tight, nubile posterior. He reached down to the hem of her short, white, thread-worn shirt, and slowly pulled it up and off her, freeing her young, perky, milky-white breasts.”

X X X

rf: Best I can say about that last one is at least it didn't include the size of her bra. ;)

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2 Mar 2021

Quote by RumpleForeskin

“His hard, aching manhood grazed her tight, nubile posterior. He reached down to the hem of her short, white, thread-worn shirt, and slowly pulled it up and off her, freeing her young, perky, milky-white breasts.”

I've come across many a story written like your example. Hard to get lost in the words when it's written with every descriptive phrase imaginable, making me gasp for air rather than gasp for more.

Rumps, your advice is solid. Adjectives are beautiful and sacred. Use them with love. Fill them with compassion. But for crying out loud, I don't need to know every little goddamned thing all at once - said wannabe smut-writer, Violet, whose bright pink, silky smooth wavy hair sat tied with a frayed green elastic hair tie in a messy bun atop her petite head, her pinker pert lips pursed with subtle admiration for the anonymous, witty writers of the tawdry, steamy Lush website, a dash of dewy perspiration leaking from her makeup-less eye-holes.

2 Mar 2021

Quote by VioletVixen
wannabe smut-writer, Violet, whose bright pink, silky smooth wavy hair sat tied with a frayed green elastic hair tie in a messy bun atop her petite head, her pinker pert lips pursed with subtle admiration for the anonymous, witty writers of the tawdry, steamy Lush website, a dash of dewy perspiration leaking from her makeup-less eye-holes.

You forgot my favourite adjective, "fucking". Can't have too much of that... Embarassed

GrushaVashnadze's best stories:

Alison Goes to London (RR) - "love this... fun, and funny, and sexy" (sprite)

The Cursed Cunt (RR) - "holyyyyy sheeeiiit.... Your writing is fucking fantastic" (CarltonStJames)

A Worthless Filthy Fucking Smoking Trash Cunt Whore (RR) - "Brilliantly done. Of course." (naughtyannie)

Snow White and the Seven Dildos (RR) - "Fuck. It's perfect.... honestly genius and so fucking well executed." (VioletVixen)

Metamorphoses (RR) - "so imaginative and entertaining" (saucymh)

And There Came Two Angels to Sodom - "What a deliciously worded story! So juicy, so raunchy" (el_henke)

Fuck-Talk (with VioletVixen) - "Jeez. I feel rendered wordless by how much clever fucking fun this is" (Jaymal)

2 Mar 2021

Quote by GrushaVashnadze

You forgot my favourite adjective, "fucking". Can't have too much of that...

"Oh, sorry, let me fix that for you," said wannabe fuck-writer, Violet, whose fucking bright pink, silky smooth wavy fuck-hair sat tied with a fucked-out green elastic hair tie in a messy bun atop her petite motherfucking head, her pinker pert fucklips pursed with subtle admiration for the fucking anonymous, witty fuck-writers of the fucking tawdry, steamy Lush fucksite, a dash of dewy perspiration leaking from her makeup-less fuck-holes.

Is that better, Grusha?

2 Mar 2021

Quote by VioletVixen

"Oh, sorry, let me fix that for you," said wannabe fuck-writer, Violet, whose fucking bright pink, silky smooth wavy fuck-hair sat tied with a fucked-out green elastic hair tie in a messy bun atop her petite motherfucking head, her pinker pert fucklips pursed with subtle admiration for the fucking anonymous, witty fuck-writers of the fucking tawdry, steamy Lush fucksite, a dash of dewy perspiration leaking from her makeup-less fuck-holes.

Is that better, Grusha?

I am so turned on right now.

You can’t truly call yourself peaceful unless you are capable of violence. If you’re not capable of violence, you’re not peaceful. You’re harmless.

2 Mar 2021

I'm not a fan of either example to be honest. My preference would be somewhere between the two.

@Lizerotica

2 Mar 2021

Nice reminder on adjective abuse. I know it's an extreme example they cite, but I'm not of a fan of either, err, either. If I felt the need to adjective up, my take might be something like:

She gasped when his raging hardness brushed her rear. Bit her lip as he reached for the worn hem of her shirt and inched the plain cotton north to free her perky breasts.

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2 Mar 2021

I am definitely guilty of adjective overuse at times. It's one of the many things I have to work on.

My last published story: Ho For The Holidays

2 Mar 2021

Adjectives can be such tarts, lurking in the corner only too ready to waylay with their specious allure. If only there was a literary equivalent of the vampire hunter's crucifix to keep them at bay.

We've all read the How to Write Good Stuff Manuals (and if you are an aspiring writer and have not . . . Well, shame on you).

I'm not sure adjectives in isolation are the problem; rather adjectives as cliches — especially in erotica (and I am as guilty as the next man). It's often more a case of it being hard to find new ways of describing the same-old, same-old.

Adjectives can be quite beautiful. Try this piece from another time and place:

"It is all fakery and self-advertisement - *truquage and battage*, as their vile argot has it. Their phosphorescent rottenness, their emaciated fervour, their Lesbian blight, their shop-sign vices set up to arouse their clients, to excite the perversity of young and old men alike in the sickness of perverse tastes! All of it can sparkle and catch fire only at the hour when the gas is lit in the corridors of the music-halls and the crude nickel-plated decor of the bars. Beneath the cerise three-ply collars of the night-prowlers, as beneath the bulging silks of the cyclist, the whole seductive display of passionate pallor, of knowing depravity, of exhausted and sensual anaemia - all the charm of spicy flowers celebrated in the writings of Paul Bourget and Maurice Barres - is nothing but a role carefully learned and rehearsed a hundred times over. It is a chapter of the MANCHON DE FRANCINE read over and over again, swotted up and acted out by ingenious barnstormers, fully conscious of the squalid salacity of the male of the species, and knowledgeable in the means of starting up the broken-down engines of their customers."

This paragraph is by French Fin de siècle author Jean Lorraine. Grammarly didn't like one bit of it. I've cum in my pants!

I ran it through the Parts of Speech calculator (link below)

https://parts-of-speech.info/

Twenty-one adjectives in all; I never knew lesbian was one.

But for most postmodern readers, prose such as this has to be taken in small doses. It's like pedaling uphill on a bike. You know it's doing you good, but you begin to long to be back on the flat.

Try it for yourselves. Read the 320 pages of Monsieur De Phocas and then switch a modern master like T C Boyle (thanks Verbal). It's like coasting downhill. Look, ma, no hands.)

Sorry! Going off on one now. Ill get my coat. .

3 Mar 2021

Quote by VioletVixen
I don't need to know every little goddamned thing all at once - said wannabe smut-writer, Violet, whose bright pink, silky smooth wavy hair sat tied with a frayed green elastic hair tie in a messy bun atop her petite head, her pinker pert lips pursed with subtle admiration for the anonymous, witty writers of the tawdry, steamy Lush website, a dash of dewy perspiration leaking from her makeup-less eye-holes.

Bright pink, silky smooth wavy hair, you say? Oh, my... Crushing hard.

As for the OP, bang on! Stephen King says as much in his On Writing. A couple when you can't possibly do without, like colour. Bright pink, for example. Tell me you can't see that in your mind's eye.

A little more thought to verb and noun selection can say just as much. Erection instead of hard manhood, eased instead of slowly pulled, marched instead of walked quickly, sneered instead of said angrily, etc.

My latest story is a racy little piece about what happens when someone cute from work invites you over to watch Netflix and Chill.

Are you sure?