For me the most familiar and useful advice is the same thing. Conciseness. I tend to elaborate in my writing creating a fantastical account of something that could have easily been said in three words. I tend to just vomit my thoughts to the paper without stopping and then return a few hours later to decipher the mess. Although editing this way becomes tedious and sometimes confusing my writing normally turns out ok. I have certain phrases I just can’t kill so they stay despite being unnecessarily elaborate. I have gotten the note to trim fat literally since my first writing assignment in elementary school. Each English teacher every year has said, “this is good but this entire chunk is unnecessary despite it being beautiful language so yada yada yada” When assigned more creative assignments I take it as a signal to just let the adjective horses run free. I flip to full throttle and just describe to my hearts content. I am a very visual learner so when I can read exactly how certain events are to be imagined I am in my element. I plan to work on this in my writing but am afraid it will eleminate some of the tone and voice that carries through. I tend to write the way I talk which is very expressive and I feel it necessary to pen it all down on paper despite my constant reminders to be concise.
lovely expressive verb-ing happening here --- one thing to check is whether or not you are mixint too many images in this short piece -- or, does this read impressively and successfully from one association to the next like Chel White's short "A Painful Glimpse into My Writing Process in Less than Sixty Seconds"
ReplyDeleteYou are a very descriptive writer. It is apparent that you love writing with metaphors and it works well for you.
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ReplyDeleteI really like your metaphor usage. It adds a new element (freshness) to your work.