The Word Cloud

One thing that does confuse me is when description goes from 'rich' to 'over-written'. There have been times when I have read something I think is beautiful, creating in me an evocative picture, only for others to say 'massively over-written' and then suggest edits / rewrites that, in my mind, bleeds the piece of everything that makes it wonderful.

I know too many adverbs isn't considered a good thing. I know using a passive voice is discouraged. Adjectivitis is a terrible affliction. I am fighting a very hard fight against these things (and many more), but I am still really confused as to when 'evocative' becomes 'too much'. People say 'make sure every word counts'... but in my head, they all count!! I'm now worried I am going the other way and conciously *underwriting* through fear of being accused of overwriting again...

As my status says, very new here. Just mooching around and finding my feet. But this seemed a very good group to belong to - all newbies overwrite - trying to set the scene. We are all control freaks until we learn less is more.

Cheers

Avis

Excellent post, as ever, by Nicola Morgan on just this topic here:

http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/2009/09/big-mistake-3-over-writing.html

I have to say that not quite all newbies overwrite, only about 85%, in my experience. The rest underwrite - don't realise that what they have so clearly in their head isn't getting down onto the page enough for the rest of us to be able to see/hear/smell/touch/taste/feel it.

John Moat and John Fortune's little book The Way To Write is the best I know on this core problem of which-words-and-how-many...

Emma

Hmmm... it was interesting that teachers were mentioned in that blog - because I am an English teacher. And she is right - we do praise and encourage the use of techniques. I am my department's creative writing go-to girl when it comes to getting kids past 'then he said lets go to the park and she said okay and they went to the park and just then there was a dog and it growled and like ran to them and they were scared' stage - so I do tend to draw on what I use and teach every day. I think you can get a distorted view of literature when you are analysing it every day of your working life - for example, I teach 'Great Expectations', concentrating on chapter 1 and 27 (and maybe the end if I have a bright group), looking at how Pip changes. To do this, we actively pick out every single technique used and go through why they are there, leading to a possibly distorted view that for it to count, it has to have subtext - no sentence is just a sentence, it has to MATTER (it warrants the capital letters!), and this is where I end up coming from. It isn't a case of showing off and saying 'hey, look what I can do!', for me, it's definitely a case of 'if I don't do this - if doesn't have some sort of subtext - then it's soulless rubbish'... which is obviously not the case!

My problem now is that, in trying to curb my own rather purple habits, I have crippled myself. I end up tying myself in knots over silly little things, fretting over 'is this too much?' rather than just writing. I've become unable to judge, on any level, my own ability to string two words together. I know what to avoid. I have helpful critique from here, books on writing lining my shelves, blogs bookmarked; it's a case of intellectually I know what to do, but actually doing it.. well, that's another matter!

Maybe just write, let it settle and come back to it at a later date with a more distanced eye?