What Editors Hate: Adjectives
I am introducing a series of posts that is on writing craft. I will start with why editors hate adjectives in prose.
Let's listen to what veteran editor and agent, Noah Lukeman has said about adjectives:"[one of] the quickest and easiest way[s] to reject a manuscript is to look for the overuse, or misuse, of adjectives...."
Designed to modify nouns by making them more vivid, adjectives, when overused, do the opposite. And editors hate that, and when they hate something, often, they just reject it and move on to the next manuscript.
Lukeman gives six reasons why manuscripts heavy on adjectives (and adverbs) generally don't work:
1. More is less: he means that the piles of adjectives will start detracting from each other, and begin to eclipse the vividness they seek to give. So by the time the reader gets to the noun, he or she may not remember the modifiers.
2. Demeaning the reader: he means that overuse imposes on the reader's imagination. It takes the fun out of the reading. I am reminded of Nhamo Mhiripiri's essay on the esoterica in Dambudzo Marechera's poetry, where he urges readers to create their own meaning as they read the poems. That's what Marechera's writing, often saturated with the unexplained, requires.
Most readers want to feel like they have imagined, so you tell them nothing by writing "it was a hot, dry, bright, and dusty day"; instead, help them determine that the day was all those things without piling the adjectives and tattooing the sentence with commas.
3. See 2, then think how empowering it is to the reader. The reader has to feel like he or she contributed something in the construction of the story's meaning.
4. Most editors think that the adjectives are too common to be interesting, making the manuscript apparent. Transparency, maybe, but not the appearance of apparence. "Stormy night" will lead to "a scarry, starry night" full of "freaky fright" and so on. Well, only if it was this poetic, many readers could linger for a second, only to yawn their way to the next book, perhaps in a dream.
5. Adjectives weaken their subjects: You begin to wonder: How come these nouns and pronouns need to lean on some modifiers, or why they let modifiers cling to them. Are they weak, useless or what? And readers hate useless subjects.
6. Adjectives and their buggage of commas slow down reading process, make for awkward reading. Reading your manuscript aloud may help prune these adjective.
I often tell my students (in my efforts to use humor), to use low-fat sentences, and one of the ways to give the reader a low-fat diet is to limit the use of adjectives; let the nouns express themselves in other ways. Remember nouns and pronouns are subjects because they are doers, so let them act, not through decoration by adjective, by doing something. Notice, though, that I encourage a low-fat and not a fat-free sentence because even in a sentence like this, I have to use some adjectives to get my point across. So moderation, or simplicity in use of adjectives, is fine. I am suspicious of adjectives that seem new, and ones that sound good because those tend to be the "here-we-go-again" triggers for editors.
I remember the first time I discovered the adjective "verdant" and used it to describe the Chimanimani landscape in a short story, I was shocked when my teacher commented that I had used a cliche. But how could it be? It sounded good, and it was new to me? Years later, I found out that the word had been used by the Hawthornes and Melvilles of nineteenth century literature. So the fact that it sounds good, and that it is new to you might be the reason to eliminate it.
Revision Exercise:
Go over the first five pages of your story and remove all the adjectives and adverbs (list them on a separate page). Now read the pages aloud. How do they read? Faster? Next, go to your list of adjectives and carefully examine them. Look them up in a dictionary, check their etymology, source language, date of first use, etc. Now are you still happy that you had used them? If you still like some of them, re-insert them into the text, and read the pages again, aloud. How are things working out for you? Which version of the story do you like best? Keep that one and don't email it to an editor yet. Come back to it in five days.
This makes the writing business time-consuming, right? Good.
More advice on the topic can be found in syle handbooks, but for those who want the editor's perspective, read The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman.
Let's listen to what veteran editor and agent, Noah Lukeman has said about adjectives:"[one of] the quickest and easiest way[s] to reject a manuscript is to look for the overuse, or misuse, of adjectives...."
Designed to modify nouns by making them more vivid, adjectives, when overused, do the opposite. And editors hate that, and when they hate something, often, they just reject it and move on to the next manuscript.
Lukeman gives six reasons why manuscripts heavy on adjectives (and adverbs) generally don't work:
1. More is less: he means that the piles of adjectives will start detracting from each other, and begin to eclipse the vividness they seek to give. So by the time the reader gets to the noun, he or she may not remember the modifiers.
2. Demeaning the reader: he means that overuse imposes on the reader's imagination. It takes the fun out of the reading. I am reminded of Nhamo Mhiripiri's essay on the esoterica in Dambudzo Marechera's poetry, where he urges readers to create their own meaning as they read the poems. That's what Marechera's writing, often saturated with the unexplained, requires.
Most readers want to feel like they have imagined, so you tell them nothing by writing "it was a hot, dry, bright, and dusty day"; instead, help them determine that the day was all those things without piling the adjectives and tattooing the sentence with commas.
3. See 2, then think how empowering it is to the reader. The reader has to feel like he or she contributed something in the construction of the story's meaning.
4. Most editors think that the adjectives are too common to be interesting, making the manuscript apparent. Transparency, maybe, but not the appearance of apparence. "Stormy night" will lead to "a scarry, starry night" full of "freaky fright" and so on. Well, only if it was this poetic, many readers could linger for a second, only to yawn their way to the next book, perhaps in a dream.
5. Adjectives weaken their subjects: You begin to wonder: How come these nouns and pronouns need to lean on some modifiers, or why they let modifiers cling to them. Are they weak, useless or what? And readers hate useless subjects.
6. Adjectives and their buggage of commas slow down reading process, make for awkward reading. Reading your manuscript aloud may help prune these adjective.
I often tell my students (in my efforts to use humor), to use low-fat sentences, and one of the ways to give the reader a low-fat diet is to limit the use of adjectives; let the nouns express themselves in other ways. Remember nouns and pronouns are subjects because they are doers, so let them act, not through decoration by adjective, by doing something. Notice, though, that I encourage a low-fat and not a fat-free sentence because even in a sentence like this, I have to use some adjectives to get my point across. So moderation, or simplicity in use of adjectives, is fine. I am suspicious of adjectives that seem new, and ones that sound good because those tend to be the "here-we-go-again" triggers for editors.
I remember the first time I discovered the adjective "verdant" and used it to describe the Chimanimani landscape in a short story, I was shocked when my teacher commented that I had used a cliche. But how could it be? It sounded good, and it was new to me? Years later, I found out that the word had been used by the Hawthornes and Melvilles of nineteenth century literature. So the fact that it sounds good, and that it is new to you might be the reason to eliminate it.
Revision Exercise:
Go over the first five pages of your story and remove all the adjectives and adverbs (list them on a separate page). Now read the pages aloud. How do they read? Faster? Next, go to your list of adjectives and carefully examine them. Look them up in a dictionary, check their etymology, source language, date of first use, etc. Now are you still happy that you had used them? If you still like some of them, re-insert them into the text, and read the pages again, aloud. How are things working out for you? Which version of the story do you like best? Keep that one and don't email it to an editor yet. Come back to it in five days.
This makes the writing business time-consuming, right? Good.
More advice on the topic can be found in syle handbooks, but for those who want the editor's perspective, read The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman.
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