HORIZONS MAY/JUNE 2018 | Page 19

SECTION TWO
“Bringing a gratifying trout to net.” Very weak.
“Joe Hopperstein caught this delightful walleye on a
Rapala Husky Jerk.” I once attended a writing seminar at a long ago SEOPA
conference with a speaker who was a writing professor.
She delivered the goods about how to write descriptive
descriptions. I remember one comment in particular,
which was more or less like this:
“Marvelous bluegills are the rule when you toss poppers
over their beds.”
“If you use ‘very’ in a sentence, think about using ‘damn’
instead and then f ind a better modif ier altogether.”
“Carl Walker caught this agreeable bass with a reel
spooled with…”
You get the point. Nice is not a good word. Instead, why
not be precise and informative in your description?
Try it.
“The wind was very cold.”
“Bringing a two-pound Rogue River rainbow trout to
net.”
“Joe Hopperstein caught this Rainy River walleye on a
Husky Jerk.”
“Fat, aggressive bluegills are the rule when you cast a
popper over their beds.”
Nice could be the most pallid and least descriptive of
all adjectives when you apply it to f ish and game. Sure,
anglers and hunters use nice in every day conversation
“Nice!” “Nice f ish!” “Nice buck!” But as a writer,
challenge yourself to convey more than you can with the
milk-toasty “nice.”
“The wind was damn cold.”
Damn is better, wouldn’t you agree? A more forceful
way to describe the character of the wind. But for a
variety of reasons, you probably don’t want to insert
“damn” every time you write “very.” So come up with a
better modif ier, even a mundane one such as “freezing.”
Or “rip-your-face-off.”
“The wind was rip-your-face-off cold.”
Not all editors would agree, but it’s damn better than
“very.”
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GRAPHIC © 2018 KRISSIE MASON
HORIZONS | 15