Eternal gratitude, Janet Reid, for sharing this (a while back) and (more recently) this example on Spare and Elegant Writing.
Does this resonate as much with you as it did with me? How far are you along in the process of simplifying yourself? We all know adverbs must be avoided, substituted with stronger verbs. What other pitfalls have you discovered in your own writing?
Passive sentence construction! It gets me every time, and I really have to watch for it.
ReplyDeleteJen, you're not alone :) Thanks for stopping by!
DeleteI quite literally have the problem of *overwriting* in first drafts since I'm dyslexic... which often appear in the form of run-on-sentences which would make Voltaire proud.
ReplyDeleteSimplifying & breaking up sentences is one of the first things I attack during edits ;)
I don't think dyslexia has anything to do with it, Ms. Monkey. Or not too much. Or not much. Or maybe I'm dyslexic too, which would totally not surprise me :D I absolutely overwrite in the first (and second and third) drafts--it takes me about five drafts to really boil stuff down, to hear the knife scrape bone.
DeleteHaha, but do you have the same word written multiple times, up to 4x in a row?
DeleteExample:
do you have have the same word written multiple multiple times?
It's not uncommon, in first drafts, to have sentences that are over 100 words long...
*knife scrape bone* how chillingly wicked, yet perfectly precise in its efficiency to convey your full meaning ;)
No, I have to admit that happens somewhat less often to me :P
ReplyDeleteThis was me for sure. I figured it would be easier to write as many words as possible and then edit. But I've come to realize it's easier to never give birth to those "darlings" than to have to kill them off! Now I try to write a clean first draft, editing as I go. I still have lots of real editing to do at the end, of course, but once I see the finished product it's easier to take out sections that don't work or move things around when I'm not distracted with cleaning up every single page.
ReplyDeleteYou're so right, Cindy. When I grow up I want to be like you :)
DeleteI agree the quote resonates. I loved learning about adverbs and stronger verbs but, sometimes, they sneakily appear again, as do long sentences and too many commas! I'm guilty of changing the subject halfway through a paragraph too, so I'm always shortening sentences and adding paragraphs :)
ReplyDelete