EPTAs an exercise try to write the same piece using roughly half the words, it will get a bit dryer but if you do it correctly and keep the parts you find the most important it wont get completely dry.
So....whadja get? - Page 2
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Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
As an exercise try to write the same piece using roughly half the words, it will get a bit dryer but if you do it correctly and keep the parts you find the most important it wont get completely dry. | ||
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KlaCkoN
Sweden1648 Posts
Sure some of them did but far from everyone. This is a perfectly legit style, and I for one, enjoy it. When people just state "You use too many flowery words" please don't just accept that. Think about what you want to convey, and the method you want to use for doing so. Of course your work can be improved upon but not via "recuding the amount of adjectives". That's not improving, that's changing the very fundamentals. Read Jane Eyre (if you can stand the story lol) for inspiration. Again: I liked this  | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
I don't know if you removed your adjectives in your edit(s), but currently, I don't find it superfluous. I mean, this IS a short story, adjectives are necessary and expected. | ||
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Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On November 25 2008 22:46 KlaCkoN wrote: You can't say that "Masters describe feelings with a minimum of words". You just can't. Sure some of them did but far from everyone. This is a perfectly legit style, and I for one, enjoy it. When people just state "You use too many flowery words" please don't just accept that. Think about what you want to convey, and the method you want to use for doing so. Of course your work can be improved upon but not via "recuding the amount of adjectives". That's not improving, that's changing the very fundamentals. Read Jane Eyre (if you can stand the story lol) for inspiration. Again: I liked this Yes you can like it, but writing like that is not that uncommon at all. And I did not say "Reduce the amount of adjectives" I said "Reduce the amount of words". It works, sure, but he wants advice, and to me it seems like he have a hard time writing condensed and instead just rolls out everything he can. Also I did not say that it would get better if he wrote it with half the words, but that it would be a good exercise. And your first point is correct of course, but it is not a contradiction of what I said. And in the end I just mean that this style is to writing as slicing is to golf. Do it but don't overdo it unless you know exactly what you are doing. If its an assignment he could easily turn it in and get a good grade, but he never mentioned anything about that so I thought that he just wanted comments on his general writing style. | ||
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Chef
10810 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + She frowned, joined her eyebrows in worry. Seriously though, this is right at the very beginning of your little work of prose, and this is setting the desire of the reader to enjoy your work immediately in a bad way. It's not only grammatically unsound, it also doesn't make any sense, and sounds kind of dumb. Frowning isn't something people do when they're worried, it's something they do when they're mad or sad. When someone is worried, they pull their cheek muscles back and bear a bit of teeth. And I don't know anyone in the world who can 'join' their eyebrows... not without surgery, or pushing them together with their fingers... Neither of which people do with their fingers. Maybe the word you were looking for was lifted slightly? That's generally the expression of helplessness, and it works with worry in a good way. Other than that... TBH I found the story uninteresting, and I didn't get attached to the lead character at all. Maybe the story will be enjoyable for you, and the girl you wrote it about, because you both already know and are attached to the main character, but for someone who doesn't... It's just meek and meaningless. We know she feels bad about her grade, but we don't know why it has such significance to her. Will her parents be disappointed? Did she need the grades for her application? Is she just a perfectionist who's going to beat herself up? We don't get any of her internal dialogue or background... It's boring. It's like "oh... shitty." When some random tells you they got a bad mark on a test. I don't give a fuck, I did great :D | ||
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jellyfish
United States149 Posts
 I can definitely see why those who are sensitive against this kind of style would say it's full of unnecessary words. Again, thanks all for the feedback; it was quite helpful. I'll put this feedback to use, and if I end up writing something I think is an improvement I'll be back for help again. ^^ | ||
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ahrara_
Afghanistan1715 Posts
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