Fallen Snow S.



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Merry Christmas! Fallen Snow's Song's and Lullaby's: A collection of Light and Dark poetry. By Alice Victoria Arkham. NOOK Book (eBook) $ 0.99. Sign in to Purchase Instantly. Available on Compatible NOOK Devices and the free NOOK Apps. Ski resorts across the Pocono Mountains are embracing the freshly fallen snow and frigid temperatures as they gear up for the 2020-2021 season. Blue Mountain Resort and Jack Frost Mountain opened.

“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 about ways to incorporate snow in creative writing.

See also 1000+ Ways to Describe Snow Part 2.

Adjectives

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 more writing tips and word lists in
The Writer’s Lexicon series.
Available in both digital and print editions.

Similes and Metaphors

Sometimes a figure of speech adds the perfect touch. 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 her icy heart

As inevitable as polar nights

Fallen Snow Specific Gravity

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

Falling Snow Sound Effect

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

Colors

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

Falling snow scenes

Falling Snow Stock Video

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

Freshly Fallen Snow

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

See also 1000+ Ways to Describe Colors.

Falling Snow Sign

Scents

Falling Snow Song

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?

📝 Have you encountered or created unusual mentions of snow in stories? I’d love to hear from you.

See also 1000+ Ways to Describe Snow Part 2.

Falling Snow Sensory Videos

Find more writing tips and word lists in
The Writer’s Lexicon series.
Available in both digital and print editions.