Discussions At The Garden Bench

Research what other writers of creative writing have to say about the usage of adjectives in our writing.

*PoseyV* Choose three to report to us.

1) Well, I like this comment/note about writing. It sure says a lot about adjectives (in a few short words).

The power of words cannot be understated. An emotional list of words can take your blog writing, blog words and blog content from dull to a blog post worth sharing because it’s simply “that good”. Something as basic as the words you choose is an overwhelmingly overlooked aspect of writing for many bloggers.

It doesn’t matter how great your content is, if you don’t use words that can invoke emotion. If you aren’t using emotional words

<https://www.candidwriter.com/candid-blog/short-powerful-words-good-great-strong-descriptive-emotional-interesting-creative-list-of-impressive-blog-writing-words>

2) Adjectives and adverbs are modifiers. Adjectives modify nouns whereas adverbs modify verbs, other adverbs, adjectives, phrases, and clauses. In fact, an adverb can modify an entire sentence. This gives adverbs a rather large playing field; maybe that explains why they are overused.

For example, car is a noun and red is an adjective. Put them together and you get a red car. The word run is a verb and the word quickly is an adverb. Put them together and you get run quickly.

But run quickly is better stated as sprint.

The examples above demonstrate why adjectives can be useful in writing and why adverbs are usually useless. Too often, adverbs are unnecessary and serve only to clutter a piece of writing.

<https://www.writingforward.com/writing-tips/avoid-adverbs>

3) This one I found here on writing.com. I don't know if it answers the specific question, but it is so very appropriate.

Coordinate Adjectives
Adjectives are coordinate when they work equally to modify another word:

*Bullet* The pianist played a beautiful, haunting melody.

“Beautiful” and “haunting” modify “melody” to the same degree, with no bearing on one another. You could just as easily say it was a haunting, beautiful melody; neither adjective is more attached to “melody.” To get a better idea of what I mean, here’s a case in which the adjectives modifying a word are not coordinate:

*Bullet* The cold December wind chilled me to my bones.

“Cold” and “December,” in this case, are know as hierarchical adjectives, because “cold” is really modifying “December wind” as whole. When you have hierarchical adjectives, they build on each other.

The difference between coordinate and hierarchical adjectives, as you may have noticed, is that coordinate adjectives have a comma between them; hierarchical adjectives don’t. How do you tell when you have coordinate adjectives? Perform the following two tests, which you can actually do at once:

*Bullet* Add “and” between the adjectives.
*Bullet* Reverse the order of the adjectives.

If the adjectives pass both these tests, then they’re coordinate. Be warned that even though we may be accustomed to hearing some adjectives in a certain order – for example, a “tall, dark, and handsome man” as opposed to a “dark, handsome, and tall man” – that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s wrong to reverse them.

Examples:

*Bullet* The pianist played a beautiful haunting melody.

Haunting and beautiful melody *Right* Makes sense *Right* Coordinate

Correct comma usage: The pianist played a beautiful, haunting melody.

*Bullet* The cold December wind chilled me to my bones.

December and cold wind *Right* Makes no sense *Right* Hierarchical

Correct Without Commas

*Bullet* Let’s go catch the 8:00 show at that old drive-in movie theater.

Movie and drive-in theater *Right* Makes no sense *Right* Hierarchical
Drive-in and old movie theater *Right* Makes no sense *Right* Hierarchical

Correct Without Commas

*Bullet* I could really go for a hot delicious pepperoni pizza right about now.

Pepperoni and delicious pizza *Right* Makes no sense *Right* Hierarchical
Delicious and hot pepperoni pizza *Right* Makes sense *Right* Coordinate

Correct comma usage: I could really go for a hot, delicious pepperoni pizza right about now.
© Copyright 2007 Davy Kraken (UN: kraken at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Davy Kraken has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work.

<https://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/458319>



*PoseyB* Which piece of advice was the most surprising to you? Why?

Well I don't know that surprising is the best word as we are learning this right now--in this lesson, but the 2nd one is very helpful and too the point; it tells us/me some specific thing that I can use strategically in my writing.

*PoseyP* How will you use this new knowledge to improve your own writing?

Most importantly, I'll watch my adjective use.(adverbs too)