one of my worst writing sins is abusing my power to create compound words. i cannot write the sentence "The sun shone as bright as honey that afternoon." no. that's boring. "The sun was honey-bright that afternoon" however? yes. that sentence is dope as fuck. i do not care if "honey-bright" is a word in the english dictionary. i do not care if the sentence is grammatically correct. i will not change. i will not correct my erred ways. the laws of the english language are mine.
Not a sin at all!
This is what's called a poetic epithet, and it happens all the time in writing. Consider, for example, Homer and his wine-dark sea, or Shakespeare and his death-mark'd love.
If you were then to start using them instead of the word they're describing, you'd be making a kenning. For example, if instead of describing the sun as honey-bright, you said "the honey-drop in the sky". Kennings are best known from Norse writings, like "the path of serpents" for gold, or "Grímnir's lip-streams" for poetry itself.
So you're not sinning, you're participating in an ancient literary tradition!
Scansion:
◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – / ◡ – The sun / was ho/ney-bright / that af/ternoon
Metrical form: iambic pentameter
