ah metaphors
Mar. 31st, 2023 10:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliOnce a writer was skipping along in her work, describing a bear as cinnamon colored. . .
Wait a minute, did they have cinnamon at this type? They're still moving about by foot and horse -- sailing ships would be implied by other culture aspects, and cinnamon was imported in the time of sailing ships, but would even a prince be familiar enough with it to use it as a color?
Rust is out, I want more positive connotations. . . .
Chestnut, I decide.
Pedants may notice that cinnamon, rust, and chestnuts are not the same color. Well, there is some overlap, and the important thing is not to indicate the precise color to the reader, which you can't do anyway, but to suggest by comparison.
(If you want it actually to mean something when you say that the curtains are blue, you can call them sky blue, or peacock blue, or navy blue, or even drab blue or melancholy blue. Give your reader something to go by -- though, of course, a single color like that is just a brush stroke in the picture, and can be swamped without other effects backing it up.)
Wait a minute, did they have cinnamon at this type? They're still moving about by foot and horse -- sailing ships would be implied by other culture aspects, and cinnamon was imported in the time of sailing ships, but would even a prince be familiar enough with it to use it as a color?
Rust is out, I want more positive connotations. . . .
Chestnut, I decide.
Pedants may notice that cinnamon, rust, and chestnuts are not the same color. Well, there is some overlap, and the important thing is not to indicate the precise color to the reader, which you can't do anyway, but to suggest by comparison.
(If you want it actually to mean something when you say that the curtains are blue, you can call them sky blue, or peacock blue, or navy blue, or even drab blue or melancholy blue. Give your reader something to go by -- though, of course, a single color like that is just a brush stroke in the picture, and can be swamped without other effects backing it up.)