Ernest Hemingway = Lack of Adjectives
One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Ernest Hemingway wrote such classics as "The Old Man and The Sea," "A Farewell to Arms" and "For Whom The Bell Tolls" to name just three of his novels. He also wrote several short stories.
Born 1899 and died in 1961, he left us with some school required reading and a bombastic chore to get through his depressing stories. As you can tell, I'm not fond of Hemingway's writing even though I've worked as a journalist. Hemingway was of course a journalist, but his fiction is why we know him.
Of his works I have read only "For Whom The Bell Tolls," and the short story "Men without Women." To say his writing is dry is an understatement, but he paved a path that is being followed by journalists to this day.
His style, you may ask? Absolutely no descriptive, flowery, unneeded, useless, irrelevant, extraneous or superfluous words. Even in his fiction, which I hope none of here at WA are writing in our Web sites, is so dry I couldn't finish the only short story I attempted to read a couple of years ago - "Men without Women." My hats off to you if you can get through it.
As writers of content, as all of us are at Wealthy Affiliate, I've noticed a plethora of adjectives that are being used as if they add something to what the writer is trying to convey.
It is very, very, very important that we as prolific, wannabe, exciting, selling, keep-your-eyes on the page writers, we must strive to be as concise, clear, accurate, to the point, entertaining, exuberant and dedicated writers.
It is a behemoth, monstrous, horrific, awful and mortal sin to use more words than you need to to get your message across.
I hope your new year is going well. Now go check out "The Sun Also Rises" as a bedside read, as you will fall asleep fast.
Recent Comments
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Can go either way -- too dry or drowning in words.
I think sometimes we tend to get too dramatic, embellish too much. And if you get in the habit of letting your writing sit, go back, read it again -- you will often find the first draft was not near as excellent as you hoped or thought it was!
Simpler with a few dashes of adjectives for flavor here and there usually is better digested so to speak.
I've read much worse than Hemingway -- and interesting enough, appreciated the work after getting into the core or the writer's mind. But I would not want that style everyday for when I picked up a magazine or read a blog!
Good advise and I am just glad that you used the word plethora in this post as that is one of my favorite words.
I agree. Ernest used too few if any at times. And in order for writing to be readable adjectives are necessary especially when you want to create a picture and/or sell something.
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Hahaha...no fan of Papa, eh? The only line I really like from ol' Ernie is the one that goes, "“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof crap detector. That is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.” ― Ernest Hemingway
So, no crap about it, write on, my friend, write on!!
Suz
Awesome! That is the only adjective I can come up with at this moment. Thank you Suz.