I once had a student who was quite a good writer except for the fact that her prose was very “flowery,” filled up with adjectives and adverbs piled almost on top of each other. Her ideas and her approach to most topics were novel and interesting, but the floweriness got in the way.
She’d become upset with me when I’d point out excessive uses of modifiers. “My teachers at my old school in Hawaii loved my writing,” she’d argue whenever I tried to justify all the red marks and slashings I’d made on her papers. “I like to write very descriptive sentences.” I tried to explain to her that using many complicated words that were intended to make her writing appear more scholarly or more attractive sometimes got in the way of plain discourse, but it was hard to convince her.
She loved to attach at least two adjectives to every noun. For example (and this is not her sentence; I made it up, but it shows what I mean), “The slender, verdant foliage of the huge old willow tree contrasted with the rough, peeling, scratchy strands of bark on the gnarled and twisted trunk of the tree, and with the golden and magenta light of the early evening summer sunset sky.”
It took forever to get through one of her sentences. They were so laden with adjectives that it sometimes took a second reading to be sure of what she was saying. She thought that she was painting a vivid scene for her readers, but hooking on so many adjectives derailed the train of thought.
Some time after I’d had her in class, I came across a paragraph written by Mark Twain. I wish I’d had it then to show to her. Twain said this about adjectives: “I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English — it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them — then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.”
I had tried to get LaRena to make clear statements in plain English, to convince her that her attempts to sound intellectual usually resulted in a sort of vague, stilted, polysyllabic confusion. I told her that the quickest cure for wordiness or flowery writing would be to look away from her page and ask herself, “What am I trying to say?” then say that. Try to make her prose less poetic.
She was a wonderful kid and eventually surrendered to my heartless red-penciling of her work — at least for my class. But she must have returned to her errant ways, because a few years later, when she was in college, I got a note from her. “Dear Mr. V, you know how you always used to tell me that my writing was too flowery? Well, guess what. Two of my professors are now telling me the same thing. I should have listened!”
As long as I mentioned Twain’s attitude about adjectives above, I should point out that Twain wasn’t crazy about adverbs, either. He’d rather use better verbs: instead of “walking quickly,” he’d have his characters run, hustle, sprint, race, march, stride or jog. Instead of “talking quietly,” his characters would mumble, mutter or whisper. In other words, he’d let the verbs do the work, not the adverbs.
Adverbs can be fun, though. Did you ever hear of “Tom Swifties?” They’re a special sort of pun in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed. For example: ‘”I couldn’t believe there were 527,986 bees in the swarm!’ Tom recounted.” Or - ‘”I only have diamonds, clubs and spades,’ said Tom heartlessly.” Or - ‘”I manufacture tabletops for shops,’ said Tom counterproductively.”
Ah, language. I love it!
