Would you understand what I meant by this?

[JRTomlin]

If I said 'he knelt at the river's edge and leaned his arm against the woody snag' would you know what I meant?

Would there be a better way to express it?

[Eric Thomson]

What is a woody snag?

[JRTomlin]

That be 'no' then. I was afraid of that. Not common parlance. (I have a truly weird vocabulary and often don't know)

A snag is a fallen tree or trees generally on a bunch of branches. Kind of like this though it's not a great example:



Fallen tree doesn't quite express what I am picturing but it may have to do.

[LilyBLily]

Never heard the phrase although I've seen such accumulations.

[Dormouse]

If you know the word then woody is redundant, and if you don't woody doesn't help much.

[Tom Wood]

I knew what you meant, but I had trouble picturing it in my mind's eye. You probably describe the scene prior to that line to make it clear where everything is positioned, but with just that line it's hard to picture.

[Dennis Chekalov]

Maybe you could just say "an old fallen tree."

[JRTomlin]

Yes, woody is redundant really. A snag is always wood.

To crouch behind it, it really most likely has to be more than just a fallen tree. It's birch trees, which are rarely thick enough that a fallen one would conceal someone but I tend to overthink these things.

[Dormouse]

Snags aren't always birches, and they're not always fallen either.
I'd regard the word as factual, leaving the image up to the reader's imagination. If you just say someone was hiding behind one, then the readers can imagine it as they wish. Providing they have an idea what a snag is.

But new vocabulary is good, no?

[A. N. Onymous]

I have only ever heard the term used in a fishing context, ie; snagged, caught on a snag etc... I don't picture a snag as being above water, although they most certainly can be. A bough, a tree trunk, a fallen log, any of those descriptions would suffice I should think.

[Dormouse]

Providing they have an idea what a snag is.

But new vocabulary is good, no?

But to make that work, you'd have to write something like old birch snag, so they'd know they needed to look it up. Oh well.

[A. N. Onymous]

To crouch behind it, it really most likely has to be more than just a fallen tree. It's birch trees, which are rarely thick enough that a fallen one would conceal someone but I tend to overthink these things.

Not the trunk of a birch, probably, but the upended roots of one, certainly.

[T. M. Bilderback]

I've never heard a woody called a "snag" before...he said innocently...

[JRTomlin]

Providing they have an idea what a snag is.

But new vocabulary is good, no?

But to make that work, you'd have to write something like old birch snag, so they'd know they needed to look it up. Oh well.

The reader already knows he's in a birch wood, so I think they'll assume that.

I have only ever heard the term used in a fishing context, ie; snagged, caught on a snag etc... I don't picture a snag as being above water, although they most certainly can be. A bough, a tree trunk, a fallen log, any of those descriptions would suffice I should think.

A forest snag is similar to but not quite the same as a water snag. Both are wood but in a forest, they often make sort of a pile with the branches, etc. and are often important habitat for birds and small animals.

This is the start of a rather pivotal scene, so I'm trying to give it some gravitas. Not sure I'm succeeding. 

[VanessaC]

Just to add that I wouldn't know what it meant either - although I'm not a huge reader of historical fiction, and it might be that this is more of an old-fashioned phrase?

I also wouldn't always think of snag as being only wood - for example, I would say that I've got a snag in my tights or I've snagged my tights, which I appreciate may be more of a slang / casual use.

Discussions like this are always fascinating, and make me realise just how tough language is.

[JRTomlin]

it isn't so much an old-fashioned phrase as a specialised one. It is used in both fishing and forestry to refer to a fallen log or pile of branches. It is useful to know if you have people in forests hunting or hiding. I have actually used it in a novel before. I'm making some attempt to have my language be a bit less obscure though. 

[IW Ferguson]

I'm familiar with snags in rivers, but hadn't heard of them in forests.

Perhaps something like: Cool water soaked through his trousers at the knee as he knelt on the soft gravel at the river's edge, peering between the upturned roots of a fallen birch.

I'm not sure what gravitas would mean in a sentence like this, so I might be way off.

[JRTomlin]

He was watching an enemy castle from behind a forest snag.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Yes, woody is redundant really. A snag is always wood.

To crouch behind it, it really most likely has to be more than just a fallen tree. It's birch trees, which are rarely thick enough that a fallen one would conceal someone but I tend to overthink these things.

Better that the author overthinks it rather than the reader mention it as an error in a review 

I was not familiar with 'snag' in that context, so I guess you hit a bit of a snag with the description