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Way into a short story I have this line:
Tears did not fall. Her face now meloncolic, of a frozen and statued composure that the best, the finest artists of the human form try to capture... but never can, probably never will.
Statued... can I use this word in this way? Well, I know I can, but does it work? This line is in initalics as if spoken by a very distant narrator
Tanks~ max
What about: of a frozen statuesque composure....
Way into a short story I have this line:
Tears did not fall. Her face now meloncolic, of a frozen and statued composure that the best, the finest artists of the human form try to capture... but never can, probably never will.
Statued... can I use this word in this way? Well, I know I can, but does it work? This line is in initalics as if spoken by a very distant narrator
Tanks~ max
"Statued" is not a word. If you mean to say "statuesque", "frozen and statuesque" is a redundancy, and I would recommend simply "frozen composure." You also create an allusion to artistry trying to make a statute from a statue - which is silly.
And delete the ellipsis. "Melancholic" is the correct spelling but also not the best word to use with "frozen" unless to the extent of a catatonic state (that is not "melancholy" which operates at a level above clinical depression) - perhaps "listless"
max keanu wrote:Way into a short story I have this line:
Tears did not fall. Her face now meloncolic, of a frozen and statued composure that the best, the finest artists of the human form try to capture... but never can, probably never will.
Statued... can I use this word in this way? Well, I know I can, but does it work? This line is in initalics as if spoken by a very distant narrator
Tanks~ max
"Statued" is not a word. If you mean to say "statuesque", "frozen and statuesque" is a redundancy, and I would recommend simply "frozen composure." You also create an allusion to artistry trying to make a statute from a statue - which is silly.
And delete the ellipsis. "Melancholic" is the correct spelling but also not the best word to use with "frozen" unless to the extent of a catatonic state (that is not "melancholy" which operates at a level above clinical depression) - perhaps "listless"
Frozen and statuesque is not necessarily redundant. Statuesque means attractive, tall and dignified. A thing of beauty, which is what Max is going for (a beauty that the finest artists try to capture. Frozen means unmoving. Without "statuesque" the meaning changes.
Charles_F_Bell wrote:max keanu wrote:Way into a short story I have this line:
Tears did not fall. Her face now meloncolic, of a frozen and statued composure that the best, the finest artists of the human form try to capture... but never can, probably never will.
Statued... can I use this word in this way? Well, I know I can, but does it work? This line is in initalics as if spoken by a very distant narrator
Tanks~ max
"Statued" is not a word. If you mean to say "statuesque", "frozen and statuesque" is a redundancy, and I would recommend simply "frozen composure." You also create an allusion to artistry trying to make a statute from a statue - which is silly.
And delete the ellipsis. "Melancholic" is the correct spelling but also not the best word to use with "frozen" unless to the extent of a catatonic state (that is not "melancholy" which operates at a level above clinical depression) - perhaps "listless"
Frozen and statuesque is not necessarily redundant. Statuesque means attractive, tall and dignified. A thing of beauty, which is what Max is going for (a beauty that the finest artists try to capture. Frozen means unmoving. Without "statuesque" the meaning changes.
I'm sorry, one cannot be statuesque without being "frozen" but one can be "frozen" without being statuesque, so if Max wishes to convey some beauty that accompanies being statuesque then he should use "statuesque" alone. However, there is something ugly about that word -- sort of technical, actually, and I don't agree that the word connotes beauty but rather a formal dignity that is of a particular beauty, perhaps, but not the sort of beauty that most people think of as "beautiful" - unemotional (no tears), mentally depressed, and listless/unmoving.
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