Abstract vs. Concrete: Seeing, not Feeling (Sort of Game)
 

I'm taking a Creative Writing course, and the teacher is really pushing concrete images. Instead of using words like "fear," "worry," "angry," "beauty," and "horrible," she suggests describing how it looks, sounds, physically feels, tastes, and smells to bring the reader into what the character is feeling. How well do you think you guys can do that?

We can make a game out of this. Name something abstract, something you can't see or touch, and describe it as if it was.

For example: Joy
Joy smells like warm chocolate chip cookies fresh out of your mother's oven
Joy sounds like the long-awaited car door slam outside the house to let you know your lover has finally returned home.
Joy feels like being in the middle of a pile of warm soft towels just taken out of the dryer.

If you don't want to participate in this and only wish to discuss the topic, that's fine, but I think it'd be fun to take a shot at turning abstract ideas into concrete images.

The next abstract word: Worry
If you'd like to add your own image/smell/sound/etc of joy, be my guest.
You can also write a sentence with an abstract idea and ask the next poster to change it into a concrete one.

For example:
"Jane heard her child cry horrifically from outside and became anxious."
"Jane's palms became sweaty as well as her forehead as she dropped the plate she was washing onto the recently swept floor and dashed out of the kitchen, her eyebrows wrinkled, her eyes dead set on the front door in the direction of her child's loud cry from outside."

That might not be the best example *shrugs* but you can see the second one better than the first, right? Seeing is believing! Let's believe out feelings, guys!

This sounds like an interesting idea! Mine sounds a bit more like pain than worry, but if you ask me worry is one of the worst things in the world. Worry may as well be a form of pain, yeah? It also probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but heck it was fun to write. =]

--
Her heart was pounding painfully against her ribcage. She could feel the muscle expand and contract against the calcium bars in her breast. With a growing cringe, she clutched at her chest as though by recognizing this foul presence it might vanish.
It didn't.
The foul thing expanded away from her heart and down her body until her toes curled into her loose fitting shoes. The knuckles rubbed brutally against the rubber until the putrescent scent of sweat drifted up from her sneakers.
She tried to cry out, but the dryness of her throat allowed only the hoarsest of coughs. The force of the dry air through her mouth was like the melting of paper on her tongue.
--

Next Word: Ecstasy (Not the drug, sillies ;) )

Just a side note, before I move on to the actual descriptions. Something good to remember when writing descriptively is to use specific verbs. It shortens the length and people get the same idea and it's not as choppy. For example: "The boy runs quickly to the store" or "The boy dashes to the store" I find the second one sounds better. So before using an adjective, see if you can think of a verb that includes the adjective.

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Ecstasy:
A wave flowed through her body so strongly she could almost see her muscles ripple like an ocean tide. Her body frozen in a moment in time, the wave left a tingling satisfaction that she could not put her finger on. Her heartbeat slowed gracefully and she inhaled a much needed breath of warm air. She fell back onto what felt like ten feet of the softest pillows in the world, and there was no pea for miles around.
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XD
Next Word: Grief (like someone you loved had died)

oh, Grief is a hard one.

Grief: Grief is the smell of a million perfumes mingiling in the stale church air. It's the taste of a thousand homemade cassoroles, each handed over with a sad smile. Greif is the sound of a million and one "I'm sorry"'s until they all sound meaningless.

Next word: Nostalgia