Adjectives

[MaxSebastian]

I just had a rather respected professional opinion on my stuff, which apparently is good enough to get out of the slush pile, so that's nice, but it seems I use too many adjectives on the whole.

So, I thought I'd pass on the advice: if you want to be published, don't over use the adjectives. It slows down the action and causes something called a 'double effect'.

Now I've been writing on Lit for a number (35) of wonderful months and it never really occured to me before. I guess it's something to do with stopping English Lit some time in the middle of the Teen Age.

Has anyone else got this great rambling problem with excessive adjectives? Does anyone have any useful experience bringing this troublesome condition under firm control?

 

[Guest]

adjective thread

Perdita

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Not adjectives, but close...

May I recommend the story "Love's Appalling Adverbs" by Amanuensis at RestrictedSection.org?

I love the part when Snape asks Hermione if she's being paid by the adverb!

 

[Uther_Pendragon]

Some adjectives are necessary. As a rule, though, English
contains single nouns to replace many adjective-noun pairs.
A villain instead of a bad man, a thread instead of thin
string, a goatee instead of a beard only on his chin. Go
through one of your stories and see how many of those
replacements you can make. Then go through again and take
out the ones which look silly, leave in the others. I'll
wager that the piece will end up shorter and looking
stronger to you.