The Lusciousness of Words

I made a bread pudding a week or so ago. A lovely cinnamon-raisin, bread pudding, soft and spongy yet firm, as only a perfect pudding can be. With it I served caramel sauce, creamy and bronze, it soaked into the firm sponge of the warm pudding, a culinary sensation my dinner companion described as orgasmic. And now sharing it with you, my hope is that you too can enjoy our treat. Words. Their lusciousness is amazing, transcendent, ours for the taking. But how we choose those words can often trick us into thinking that fancy adjectives are all we need to make our work richer, more lush. It is the emotional attachments that a reader gives to the words we retrieve that make them fall heavily on their hearts or pass lightly from their minds. How we introduce our characters, describe the scene where an action takes place, or the action itself, is often through the use of lush words. Balancing how much “lusciousness” is what makes a piece flow or flop.

In my upcoming novel, two characters are tracked through their lives, meeting each other after the ups and downs of their individual experiences. They are both in their sixties. Both have stories, both have regrets, but then they have each other. How do I define that moment when the reader will finally know that this relationship is permanent? Do I go for tenderness and sap and a shared understanding? How do I make my reader understand how a look or a…