Hark thee unto her loose strands of hair— How they descend, like unto gossamer trails of tears from the Angels above Lamenting the wretched state of fallen Man in all his Wickedness nevermind
No yours was great and it inspired me: Behold, thou shepherd swain, behold yon light-limbed nymph-- her hair is starlit ev'ning and her dusky aspect recalleth the twilight softness of a summer's day, or spring-flushed lily freshened by the new-laid dew.
Please give me some verbs to work with. I mean verbs that can go with loose strands of hair. "Trail" was one example you mentioned. What are some others? And a metaphor for her bun. Something which is not over the top. Thanks
"It looked the top of her head was being attacked by a brunette jellyfish." Sorry, I'm not good at this sort of thing.
Re the OP image: 11 Types of Braided Hairstyles for Women (Photo Examples) Scroll down to the very end, they're called Greek braids.
Pardon me. Malisky is Greek, and I was wondering half-jokingly if she had any insight into Greek braids. The article you linked was very informative; I had no idea there were so many kinds of braids.
Cascaded would be too much. Drifted or fluttered would work if there's a breeze. Maybe they "lightly veiled the sides of her face", but that sounds like too much and not quite the right image. Honestly I think theres a hard limit to how poetic or ornate you can get with describing someone's hair, at least in contemporary writing. I would stick pretty close to those Hemingway-esque basic descriptive terms, but slightly modified. If you've seen the thread about Chekov's advice to Gorky about using absolutely basic descriptions, I agree that the totally basic approach ('The sun went down', 'It began to rain') is too basic for most situations, but that just a slight addition brings poetry and life to it—'The sun rose thinly over the lake'. This implies that it isn't always just the verbs, but carefully chosen modifiers that can make all the difference. Ironically enough, earlier in his career, Chekhov was himself guilty of some extremely overdone descriptions, as provided by @Seven Crowns. I also think maybe a metaphor for a bun is a bit much. I can't think of how I would describe a bun metaphorically. In fact, bun is already kind of metaphorical, like she's got a dinner roll on top of her head. "Her hair was gathered into a loose bun with a few long strands curving gracefully alongside her elfin face." Elfin actually sounds like too much to me, but I left it in because you and I have different tastes in verbiage. And yes, I just confirmed it for myself by writing that—I find it very difficult to fill in the blank as in "Her hair ____ in loose strands." That's way too constrictive, and I don't think that reductively when I write. It's more of a loose intuitive thing. I need a certain amount of freedom to work with entire sentences, and not just a single one, but a group if that's what it takes. I think that's why you're having trouble getting responses here, most of us doubtless feel the same way.
