McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

When is wordy just too wordy?

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the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: Paynesgrey on June 21, 2011, 03:07:39 PM ---"Look, Jeff, these little stories about Canterbury are funny and all, but I need a few more of them if you want me to pick up your bar tab for you."

--- End quote ---

Have you by any chance seen:

http://houseoffame.blogspot.com/2006/04/idea-for-poeme.html

(That's one where I have literally bought the t-shirt.)

Paynesgrey:
I'm afraid that link seems to be kaput.  Do you have another link to the same material?

In regards to King, wordy indeed.  But how many Stephen Kings are there, compared to Failed Stephen Kings?  Anyway, he started with workshops and writing exercises, short stories and smaller books before moving to Epic Tomes.  Sometimes it works (The Stand)  other times, not so much.  And for a good long while it seemed he was just phoning it in.  But the average or new writer trying to emulate his style is likely to get a lot of rejection slips, and reviews using phrases like "ponderous" and "plodding" or "lost in the sound of his own typing."

King established a his "street cred" and has been successful enough that editors let him do it his way, that existing fans would buy everything he puts out.  But frankly, I think that King's writing style is not one that too many people could emulate successfully.  I also suspect he gets a lot of slack publishers, critics, reviewers readers would not grant anyone without his track record.

Snowleopard:
Being hit by a van doesn't help either.

BumblingBear:

--- Quote from: arianne on June 09, 2011, 04:14:47 AM ---We've all read those books where the sun takes fifty pages or so to rise (and then fifty more pages about how the hero and heroine felt when watching this wonderful sunrise).

However, I sometimes found myself writing long sentences, not flowery description actually, but kind of longish anyway.

Example I have used when talking to people about this, is where one of the characters smashes a pane of glass with his fist, and the subsequent description goes “...the slivers [of glass] showered down to disappear into the dark of the pavement”.

I personally like this, but I'm wondering if maybe it's too wordy? Should the glass just shower down? In a few simple words? Or just have the glass fall down instead?

Thoughts?

--- End quote ---

I would write it:

"the slivers [of glass] showered down to the pavement below, tinkling as they went.

A lot of how you construct the sentence depends on what you are writing and what kind of mood you are trying to convey.

meg_evonne:
The problem with suggesting actual re-wording is that the context and the reason for the line can be so different, and it's the author that needs to gage that.

In this case, you could begin with the sound of the glass makes and it chances the nuance of the line. The longer version can be just as relativent and important. We don't know, because we don't have the complete context or the entire manuscript...

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