Winter Scene
The icy air whistles around my ears, causing my skin to tingle and sting. Fingers and toes are numb, but it’s a good feeling. Snug inside my many layers of clothes, nothing can spoil the overwhelming feeling of being taken back to childhood. The urge to make a snowball is all consuming and I have to restrain myself from lying down on the floor and making a snow angel. Every step I take leaves a fresh, crisp footprint in the snow, as if I am the only person to have ever been here. Snowflakes fall gently from the sky, tickling the end of my nose and tempting me to stick out my tongue and have a taste.
The branches of the trees bow with the heavy load they are carrying, bending towards the floor. It makes me think, that if only they could shake themselves like a dog covered in water does; they would be free. Everything glistens, as if a fairy has sprinkled her dust over the entire world. Colours are brighter against the pure white blanket that spreads as far as the eye can see. The houses become works of art, with their beautiful undisturbed snowy roofs. Aerials and chimneys become sculptures, taking on new forms.
Children are jumping about and running around. They have the day off school and their excitement is clear. The older children confidently strut around aiming snowballs at anything that stands still long enough. Smaller children cower and scatter as they try to avoid the incoming missiles. Girls scream and hide as they are bombarded with wave after wave of relentless snowballs. There is one young boy who can’t move. He is wrapped tight in so many clothes, that he can barely breathe. His scarf meets his hat leaving just a small slit for his eyes to warily peak out from. He can’t bend his legs or arms as the padding in his all in one suit has frozen him like a starfish.
The airs smells pure and fresh. Everything seems quieter, almost muffled. There is a sense of serenity in the atmosphere. Nobody attempts to try and drive their cars as the roads are too treacherous. This adds to the eeriness and quietness.
Snowmen creations appear on every corner. Lovingly made with cold, wet hands. There are; fat ones, thin ones, wobbly ones and tiny ones. But what always makes me sad is that it will all melt away, normality will resume. All that will be left is the grey, dirty slush and the memories of another rare day in the snow.
© Copyright 2007 Leo (lianne at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates have been granted non-exclusive rights to display this work.
KathySteinemann.com: Free Resources for Writers and Poets
Posted on Nov 20/19 by Kathy Steinemann
Snow: Supernatural?
“The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?” ~ J. B. Priestly
Where is enchantment to be found? In stories, and some of those stories may become even more enchanting with the inclusion of snow.
Today’s post is the first of two that offer ways to incorporate snow in creative writing.
Adjectives to Describe Snow
Adjectives are often the first resource exploited by writers. As you experiment with words in this section, heed opinion adjectives and stacked modifiers.
A
abominable, abundant, accumulated, advancing, ageless, airborne, alpine, ankle-deep, appalling, approaching, arctic, artificial, autumnal
B
bad, barren, beautiful, belated, belly-deep, billowed, billowing, biting, blasted, bleak, blinding, bloodstained, bonnie, bottomless, bright, brittle, bumpy, bygone
C
changeless, chaotic, cheerless, chest-deep, chilling, choppy, clammy, clean, cloud-soft, cohesive, cold, compacted, compressed, concealing, congealed, constant, continuous, cottony, crisp, cruel, crumbly, crunchy, crusted, crusty, crystalline, cushiony
D and E
damp, dazzling, deathly, deep, dense, desolate, dingy, dirty, distant, domed, downy, dreaded, dreary, drifting, dry, dusty, dwindling, early, elusive, encircling, encrusted, endless, enveloping, ephemeral, eternal, evanescent, everlasting, evil, extraordinary
F
fake, fallen, falling, faux, feathery, featureless, fierce, filmy, filthy, fine, firm, flaky, fleecy, flinty, flocculent, floury, fluffy, flying, foamy, foggy, forbidding, forecasted, formidable, frequent, fresh, friable, frigid, frothy, fun, furious, furrowed
G
gentle, ghostly, glacial, glaring, glassy, glazed, gleaming, glinting, glistening, glistering, glittering, gorgeous, gory, grainy, granular, granulated, gravely, grimy, gritty, groomed, grubby, gummy, gusting
H and I
half-melted, hard, hardened, hated, heavy, high, hip-high, honeycombed, icy, immaculate, immeasurable, impassable, impending, implacable, incessant, indefatigable, inevitable, infernal, inhospitable, interminable, intermittent, inviting, iridescent
J to L
jewel studded, knee-deep, lacy, lasting, late, layered, leaden, leftover, light, limitless, liquefied, looming, loose, lovely, low-lying, luminous, lumpy, lustrous
M to O
magnificent, majestic, matted, mealy, measurable, melted, melting, merciless, miserable, moderate, moist, moonlit, muddied, muddy, mushy, nasty, nearby, neck-deep, never-ending, new, numbing, occasional, old, omnipresent, oncoming, orographic, overlying, overnight
P to R
packed, patchy, pathless, pelting, penetrating, perennial, permanent, perpetual, persistent, phosphorescent, pillow-soft, pillowy, pitiless, plastic, plentiful, plowed, polluted, porous, powdered, powdery, pretty, pristine, prolonged, puffy, punctual, pure, raging, rain-saturated, receding, reflecting, refreshing, relentless, reliable, remaining, ridged, rimed, rippled, ruthless, rutted
Sa to Sm
salty, sandy, savage, scant, scattered, sculpted, seamless, seasonal, seeping, semipermanent, serene, shadowy, shallow, sheeted, shifting, shiny, silent, silken, simulated, skiable, sleety, slick, slimy, slippery, sloshy, sludgy, smooth, smothering
So to Su
soaked, sodden, soft, softening, soggy, soiled, solidified, soppy, sparkling, sparkly, sparse, spectral, spongy, spotless, spotty, spring, squeaky, star-studded, starlit, sticky, stifling, stinging, streaming, strong, sudden, sugary, summer, sun-kissed, sunless, sunlit, superincumbent, surrounding
T
tempestuous, terrible, terrific, textured, thawing, thick, thin, threatening, toxic, track-filled, trackless, trampled, treacherous, twilit
U
ubiquitous, unblemished, unbroken, uncleared, undisturbed, unending, uneven, unexpected, ungroomed, uninterrupted, uninviting, unmarked, unmarred, unpacked, unplowed, unpolluted, unpredictable, unpredicted, unrelenting, unseasonal, unspoiled, unstable, unstained, unsullied, unswept, untimely, untouched, untracked, unwelcome, unyielding
V to Y
velvety, vengeful, violent, virgin, waterlogged, watery, waxy, well-trampled, wet, whispering, wild, windblown, wind-driven, windswept, winter, wispy, wondrous, wooly, year-round, yielding
Find thousands of writing tips and word lists in
The Writer’s Lexicon series
and additional resources on my Facebook page.
Snow Similes and Metaphors
Sometimes a figure of speech adds the perfect touch. Be careful not to overdo, though. Provide enough imagery to stimulate the imagination, but not so much that you slow action or bore readers.
Watch everything and everyone around you. Pay attention to visual media, and note phrasing in books. Your scrutiny will inspire new ideas.
Here are a few phrases to stimulate your creativity.
- a blanket of melancholy
- a carpet of cotton batting
- a colorless shroud
- a crispy meringue tipped with brown
- a fluffy featherbed
- a garden of ice
- a lacy tablecloth with flowers and grass peeping through
- a landscape frosted with sweet whiteness
- a serial killer, silent, stalking, waiting to thrust its cold knife into the countryside
- a wooly white duvet
- an avalanche of icy death
- an onslaught of white, blinding and freezing
- as cold as someone’s icy heart
- as inevitable as polar nights
- as quiet and soft as an angel’s wings
- as rare as ice cubes in Hell
- as sparse as the hair on someone’s balding skull
- as welcome as rain at a summer barbeque
- as white as someone’s lies
- cookie-sized confetti
- dirty lather soaping the city
- disappearing as quickly as dew in the desert
- feathers of white creating a downy nest in every hollow
- fluttering white moths kissing noses and chins
- muddy and slushy snow-gravy
- powdered gems sparkling in the sun
- soft as a lover’s kiss
- sparkling gems floating onto flower and face
- stardust sprinkling over a Milky Way of upturned faces
- white concrete
- white waves rippling over the fields
The Colors of Snow
Snow is often multicolored. Shadows, foreign substances, variable lighting, and other conditions change its tint. It might be shadow-dappled, blue-spattered, mud-stained, or smoke-streaked, for example.
Consider the following ten phrases as a foundation for creating multicolored descriptions of snow.
- [insert color or colorful object]-dappled
- [insert color or colorful object]-dotted
- [insert color or colorful object]-flecked
- [insert color or colorful object]-pocked
- [insert color or colorful object]-spattered
- [insert color or colorful object]-splattered
- [insert color or colorful object]-spotted
- [insert color or colorful object]-stained
- [insert color or colorful object]-stippled
- [insert color or colorful object]-streaked
If you need a single color, try one of the following.
A to M
ashen, black, bloody, blue green, bluish, brown, brownish, candy-colored [due to algae growth], cement grey, crimson, down grey, empurpled, filthy grey, glare white, golden, green, grey, greyish, gritty grey, hoary (greyish white), mauve
O to Y
off color, orange, pallid, pearlescent, pearly, pink, purple, red [from iron oxide], red with blood, roseate, rosy, ruddy, sidewalk grey, silver, silvery, sooty, watermelon pink [due to algae growth], white, yellow, yellowish
Snow Scents
Although snow is frozen water and shouldn’t have an inherent smell, most people and animals can detect a snowstorm before it hits. Their noses respond to a number of factors, including the increase in humidity.
Characters will experience different olfactory stimuli depending on location and time period. A visitor to Disneyland could smell cinnamon from churros (What? Snow in Disneyland? Story fodder.) But a resident of the 1800s might smell coal fires.
If someone claims that snow smells like apple pie, they’re likely standing next to a bakery or Grandma’s cooling shelf.
The colder the temperature, the more subdued the scent of air. But snow still absorbs scents from the environment, especially when partially melted.
I have seen adjectives like the following used by writers when describing the scent of snow: fresh, fragrant, humid, odorous, perfumed, and stagnant.
However, English provides a myriad of words to choose from. Snow might smell like, reek of, or be redolent with the scent of:
A to D
algae, almonds (cyanide), apple pie, bacon, a bakery, a barbeque, a barn, blood, booze, burning [leaves, plastic, rubber], brushfires, a busy highway, campfires, Christmas, cinnamon, clean laundry, coal fires, coffee, compost, decaying [fill in the blank], diesel, dirt, dog poop
E to M
exhaust fumes, fire, fir trees, a forest, fresh laundry, gasoline, ghetto, gingerbread, Grandma’s kitchen, gunpowder, horse manure, incense, iron, jasmine, kitty litter, landfill, the mountains, mud, musk ox, musty leaves
O to W
an oil refinery, an outhouse, ozone, peppermint, pig manure, pine trees, a polecat, pollution, a pulp mill, roasting [chicken, pork, turkey], rotten cabbage, sewer, skunk, smog, spruce trees, sulfur, Thanksgiving, vomit, warming cars, wastewater treatment plant, wet grass, woodsmoke, wolf, wolverine
Snow: So Much More Than Freezing Water
“We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death. Yet snow is but the mask of the life-giving rain; it, too, is the friend of man, the tender, sculpturesque, immaculate, warming, fertilizing snow.” ~ John Burroughs
Does Your WIP Include Snow?
If your story unfolds in a desert, you could generate intrigue with the addition of wintry precipitation. What would cause snowflakes in the middle of the Sahara? Why would an SUV have ice encrusted on its undercarriage?
Are You Interested in More Word Lists and Writing Tips?
If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to my blog. (The link will take you to the subscription widget at the top left of this post.)
I usually post two to five times monthly, and you can discontinue your subscription at any time.
Find thousands of writing tips and word lists in
The Writer’s Lexicon series
and additional resources on my Facebook page.
