Feng shui, the ancient art of arranging objects to create harmony in one’s life, is most often associated with home décor. I also use it in writing.

Many times, I’ve found myself arranging and rearranging a room because it just doesn’t feel right; everything looks fine, but something is off. Maybe the sofa is placed against a wall as is conventional, but it's near an entry so people have to walk in front of anyone sitting on it.

What if we moved it to the middle of the room?

Ahhh, that’s it!

In the same way, I believe words want to be arranged a certain way to achieve a harmonious sentence.

There’s a Rule for That

The royal order of adjectives is not some club for the British monarchy but a direction to place words in a certain order:

• Determiner (an article or possessive like the or our)

• Quantity

• Opinion

• Size

• Shape

• Color

• Origin/Material

• Qualifier (a detail about the noun)

I wish I could give you an easy mnemonic for this, but DQOSSCOQ doesn’t cut it.

You’ll have to just go with feng shui -- whether the sentence feels right (and it will if you apply the rule).

Every Word Knows Its Place

Take this series:

She wore a small, beautiful, round ivory cameo necklace.

It seems fine but like the furniture in my living room, the words don't work this way.

Let’s apply the order of adjectives and rearrange them:

Determiner - Opinion - Size - Shape - Material - Qualifier

It then becomes a beautiful, small, round ivory cameo necklace.

Now doesn’t that feel better?

I also use feng shui for sentence constructions like this:

The goal of the committee is to keep the lines of communication between merchants and city officials open.

The problem is there’s far too much distance between "to keep" and “open.” The reader can lose track of the whole point by the time they reach the end.

And so, we rearrange:

The goal of the committee is to keep open the lines of communication between merchants and city officials.

Feels better, doesn't it?

Bad structure doesn’t just wear out the reader or make them feel uncomfortable. It can communicate something entirely different from what you intend:

She enjoys relaxing with her family in her PJs.

That’s got to be a pretty big pair of PJs.

Rearrange:

She enjoys relaxing in her PJs with her family.

I don't know about you, but I feel much better.

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