Writing It Right: Avoiding the Alluring Adjective
by Carolynn Carey
Adjectives: Those beauteous, descriptive, addictive, tantalizing adjectives- What's not to love?
Well, for one thing, adjectives can lead us down the path that might cause an editor to remind us to "show, don't tell." As Constance Hale points out in Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose, if editors use that particular cliché, they may be trying to tell us to avoid too many adjectives.
According to Hale, certain adjectives should be avoided altogether if you are trying to "show." Among those that she describes as "ultimate lightweights [that] describe the reaction of the observer rather than the qualities of the thing observed" are the following: unique, interesting, boring, good, bad, important.
And, as C. S. Lewis writes, "It's no use telling us that something was 'mysterious' or 'loathsome' or 'awe-inspiring' or 'voluptuous.'" Lewis goes on to suggest that "By direct description, by metaphor and simile, by secretly evoking powerful associations, by offering the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order), and by the very beat and vowel-melody and length and brevity of your sentences, you must bring it about that we, we readers, not you, exclaim 'how mysterious!' or 'loathsome' or whatever it is. Let me taste for myself, and you'll have no need to tell me how I should react."
In Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, the authors advise writers to "Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place." While Strunk and White agree that both adverbs and adjectives "are indispensable parts of speech," they also say that in general, "it is nouns and verbs, not their assistants, that give to good writing its toughness and color."
Along the same line, Hale writes, "Adjectives often get hauled in to prop up weak, generic, imprecise nouns when writers are too lazy to do the thinking to find better nouns." She also warns us not to "slap on an adjective that merely repeats what the noun or verb makes obvious." Examples of extraneous adjectives include free gift, personal opinion, afternoon matinee, convicted felon, and serious danger.
So what does all of this mean? Must we slash and burn every adjective we see? No. Remember that Strunk and White refer to adjectives as "indispensable parts of speech." They also say that adjectives occasionally "surprise us with their power."
The conclusion I reached from listening to all of these experts is that the appropriate adjective can be a boon to the writer but that we must examine each one to be sure we aren't using it as a crutch for a weak or imprecise noun. If we are, then it's time to reexamine our sentence and try to ensure that we've not been tempted by the alluring adjective to tell rather than show.
Copyright © Carolynn Carey.
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