Sisters

2021-03-14

Words of the week

Panglossian(adj): characterized by or given to extreme optimism, especially in the face of unrelieved hardship or adversity.
Breadthening (v).
Rubicund (adj): red or reddish; ruddy.
Louche (adj): dubious; shady; disreputable.
Sister (n).
Profusion (n): abundance; abundant quantity.
Nexus (n): a means of connection; tie; link; the core or center, as of a matter or situation.
Luminary (n): a person who has attained eminence in his or her field or is an inspiration to others.
Felicitate (v): to compliment upon a happy event; congratulate.
Small fortune (n).
Nonpareil (adj): having no equal; peerless.
Paratragoedia (n): parody of the tragic style or genre; mock-tragedy.
Tutelary (adj): of or relating to a guardian or guardianship.
Precipitancy (n): headlong or rash haste.
Williwaw (n): a sudden strong gust of cold wind blowing offshore from a mountainous coast, as in the Strait of Magellan.
Blunt (adj).
Avant-garde (adj): of or relating to the experimental treatment of artistic, musical, or literary material.
Foible (n): a minor weakness or failing of character; slight flaw or defect.
Pivot (v).
Ungainly (adj).
Coruscate (v): to emit vivid flashes of light; sparkle; scintillate; gleam.
Jinx (n).
Rebus (n): an arrangement of picture, symbols and/or words repesenting phrases or words, especially as a word puzzle.
Meticulous (adj).
Ailment (n).

Stats

Words: 170
Words-of-the-day: 25
Inclusion: 15%
Sentences with no words-of-the-day: 0
Most words-of-the-day in one sentence: 3

Nouns: 12
Adjectives: 9
Verbs: 4

Breakdown

My longest prose to date, but is it my best? ‘And there I was…’ to me, the drama in the way the protagonist narrates her story sounds like she is regaling her adventure to kids years later in the village. Do you get that sense? The most interesting thing I did in this piece was to describe the two characters as sisters. It begs the question: how are they sisters? Dragon’s are known to shape shift, could the woman be a dragon? But would a dragon fight another dragon in the hampering disguise of a human? I don’t like to believe that. It’s more likely they are metaphorical sisters, and in which case it alludes at a much deeper history between the two.

Panglossian, that’s a cool word. I really wanted to get that in as my first word-of-the-day and to make it stick I was glad to welcome breadthening and rubicund into the sentence. Breadthening and rubicund so easy come together to express facial expressions, don’t you think? After panglossian you are hit by ‘louche hubris’ which is a word paring I love; it’s like saying sneaky and bold but with a fuck you.

By the end of sentence two, you get a feel of who the protagonist is and what they’re doing: a woman of low morality preparing to do something dastardly to a family member and facing the terrifying ordeal almost laughing. Then sentence three and four provide an epic back story. Nexus was a word I was quite keen to integrate, but it wasn’t simple, and I probably could have done it better. A nexus is the core of a situation something that connects, so to pull it off here I made sure I described the depravities as ‘chained’. So then each depravity is a link, and this showdown is what the links have built up to. It would have been better to say: ‘The profusion of misdeeds was now a nexus of chained depravities.’ It still needs work but ‘nexus’ would fit better like that.

In paragraph two you start to understand what the protagonist is confronting. It has a nonpareil throat, tutelary instincts, wings, ungainly claws, scales and a roar to eclipse all ailments. DRAGON! Tutelary is a word I put to good use here, I feel; only when you see the image of the slain dragon in the horde of gold could you understand what she had a guardian’s instinct for (unless you picked it up from small fortune). It also highlights that the dragon is potentially more noble than the protagonist. I liked how I described the wings, not by their shape or colour, but by the force they exacted on the protagonist. I also feel I did well justifying the woman’s skill was enough to best a dragon: an avant-garde dance, and amazing swordsmanship precise enough to carve a rebus in the dragons scales. A meticulous rebus in dragon scales I do find hard to imagine but it sounds cool.

Overall I like aspects of this piece but the narrative on a whole feels clunky with sentences awkwardly strung together with an unclear tone. The fight was too quick and jarring, and the last sentence feels like cheap. I think the prose could have benefited from another 50 – 60 words maybe.