Use adjectives sparingly

A couple of posts ago I suggested using Word's synonym-finder as a handy tool for livening up your writing by varying your verbs and adjectives. Maybe now, though, is a good time to offer a bit of related advice. Go easy on the adjectives, which are words used to modify nouns and pronouns, as in the wide river or she's tall.

Some writers, particularly those who are still learning the craft, tend to sprinkle adjectives liberally into their copy, like a chef adding spices to a sauce. Certainly, like a spice, a carefully chosen, creative adjective can enhance the flavor of your prose. But too many adjectives, or sloppily chosen ones, can ruin your writing. The prudent writer uses adjectives sparingly, choosing, instead, to let verbs and nouns do the heavy lifting in a sentence. That's why Mark Twain is said to have declared, "If you catch an adjective, kill it." Sound advice. Learn to recognize adjectives and toss them into your initial draft. But when you revise, look at them with the critical eye of a drill sergeant inspecting a recruit's uniform for flaws. If the adjective is weak, inappropriate or simply unnecessary, take Twain's advice and kill it.

Twain's memorable suggestion, by the way, is the title of a new grammar book by Ben Yagoda. I haven't read it yet, but it looks like it would be a helpful volume. The New York Times has excerpted its first chapter.

This fall, I'm considering tweaking Twain's advice and advising my university-level writing students, "If you catch a cliche, kill it." As I've written before, overuse of cliches is another practice that clutters and weakens writing. All this talk of killing. It makes writing seem more like a homicidal act than one of creation and inspiration.