Discussions At The Garden Bench

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. If one is writing for one’s own pleasure, that fear may be mild — timidity is the word I’ve used here. If, however, one is working under deadline — a school paper, a newspaper article, the SAT writing sample — that fear may be intense. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.

[…]

Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as ‘good’ and other sorts as ‘bad,’ is fearful behavior.

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. If one is writing for one’s own pleasure, that fear may be mild — timidity is the word I’ve used here. If, however, one is working under deadline — a school paper, a newspaper article, the SAT writing sample — that fear may be intense. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.

[…]

Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as ‘good’ and other sorts as ‘bad,’ is fearful behavior.

I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. If one is writing for one’s own pleasure, that fear may be mild — timidity is the word I’ve used here. If, however, one is working under deadline — a school paper, a newspaper article, the SAT writing sample — that fear may be intense. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.

[…]

Good writing is often about letting go of fear and affectation. Affectation itself, beginning with the need to define some sorts of writing as ‘good’ and other sorts as ‘bad,’ is fearful behavior.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/03/13/stephen-king-on-adverbs/


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http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/there-are-no-rules/dont-dismiss-adverb...
Different point of view

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“Adjectives are frequently the greatest enemy of the substantive.”
– Voltaire

“[I was taught] to distrust adjectives as I would later learn to distrust certain people in certain situations.”
– Ernest Hemingway

“The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.”
– Clifton Paul Fadiman

“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 close together. They give strength when they are wide apart.”
– Mark Twain

“The road to hell is paved with adjectives.”
– Stephen King

“[The adjective] is the one part of speech first seized upon and worked to death by novices and inferior writers.”
– J.I. Rodale

“Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.”
– Ezra Pound

“The adjective has not been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.”
– E.B. White

http://flavorwire.com/125609/10-authors-against-adjectives
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“In writing. Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was "terrible," describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, "Please will you do my job for me."

[Letter to Joan Lancaster, 26 June 1956]”
― C.S. Lewis, Letters to Children
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/adjectives

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Which piece of advice was the most surprising to you? Why?
Stripping away adjectives and adverbs wasn’t what I expected to find, because these help show what is happening in a story or explain things in a way that the reader can associate with experience.



How will you use this new knowledge to improve your own writing?
I plan on being careful with my choice of words, not over using words which do not forward the story, and being creative with the presentation of “show don’t tell”. There are , however times when telling something in a story is as effective as showing or sometimes more effective than showing the reader the details in a story.


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