One of the main things I notice in badly written manuscripts is that when an author has a thin story he or she tends to cover it up with excess. When I use the word thin to describe fiction it means that often the dramatic question at the heart of the story is not particularly engaging; often it involves little or no suspense; sometimes it has no subplots; sometimes it simply never comes to life.
Excess can take many shapes---excess figurative language or modifiers, overwrought emotions, every leaf or sidewalk or sigh described, dialogue that rambles and never ignites into conflict. But lately what really worries me is when writers cannot handle language and resort to excess to tart up a story. If your language is imprecise you’ll lose the reader’s trust. If your language veers all over the place it detracts from the story’s unity.
When you write you need to present all your ideas with sentences that are stripped down to their cleanest components. If you want to sprinkle in a few gems here and there that’s fine. But when a tastefully dressed woman attends a party she walks in wearing earrings and a few select pieces of jewelry. Now, if she’s wearing a tiara and sixteen bracelets, covered head to toe with tattoos, and has piercings hanging off every part of her face, she broadcasts a much different message. And elegant isn’t one of them. I believe that good writing is elegant and often understated, even if you’re writing about a risqué or bold topic.
Now, I realize that there are many moods, tones, approaches for crafting a story. But excess will always distract from whatever you’re trying to say, will choke the reader as if he’s in a crowded elevator with a person doused in cheap cologne. Most stories I work on require more suspense, nuance, sophistication and somehow, a lot less surplus language
When I work on manuscripts for my clients, I pen long memos about the problems in their manuscripts. I’m often advising them that they have not left enough to the reader’s imagination, and I often advise that they read books on craft they might refer to for help. For people who use excess language and modifiers I sometimes suggest Noah Lukeman’s The First Five Pages. In this book, Lukeman, who is an agent explains the mistakes that cause a manuscript to be rejected. The number one mistake that he cites is excess modifiers, and I agree with him. Nothing shouts that a writer is an amateur more than this sort of excess.
Lukeman writes: “…the quickest and easiest way to reject a manuscript is to look for this overuse, or misuse, of adjectives and adverbs. Most people who come to writing for the first time think they bring their nouns and verbs to life by piling on adjectives and adverbs, that by describing a day as being “hot, dry, bright, and dusty” they make it more vivid. Almost always the opposite is true.”
Remember that your reader is a participant in the story and especially if you’re writing a book set in a contemporary setting, your job is to remind the reader of what he already knows. Again quoting Lukeman, “Finally, the overall effect of a text encumbered with adjectives, adverbs, and the inevitable commas in between makes for very slow, awkward reading—which these writers would find out for themselves if they only took the time to read their own work aloud.”
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