Sometimes Less is More

“Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”-Patrick Rothfuss

I think of description in general. I think of the power words can have. I think of my bleak skill in turning them--I make pretties now and then. Sometimes I make a gleaming sentence or two. But then I read someone who really knows how to turn words to their advantage. I use reams of words and am able to build something readable. They pin it to the exact point in one sentence. And I fall silent. Not silent from discouragement. Not silent from dismay. Silent with the silence that one feels in the presence of something greater than themselves. There is no desire to say anything. It is enough to look and be amazed....

"He wasn't that good looking, he had the social skills of a wet cat, and the patience of a caffeinated hummingbird." -Karen Chance

"It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside." -Maud Hart Lovelace Betsy, Tacy, and Tib

“Time will mellow it, make it a moment for laughter. But now it was not funny, now I did not laugh. It was not the future, it was the present. It was too vivid and too real.”-Daphne du Maurier Rebecca

“I do not think that you can be changing the end of a song or a story like that, as though it were quite separate from the rest. I think the end of a story is part of it from the beginning.”-Rosemary Sutcliff