Do you know what “abject” means? Maybe so, but you’re the one person who won’t be reading what you’ve written. To be quickly understood and engage most readers, we need to write at an intelligent fifth-grade level.
We don’t impress readers with seldom-used words, especially when they don’t convey the intended meaning. Read on, and you’ll see that “abject misery” is as redundant as writing “exact same.”.
Great words from False Memory by Dean Koontz:
Huddled forward in abject misery, apparently sickened by the violent images spurting unwanted through her mind, Martie gagged, and soon the gagging evolved into fierce spasms of retching that would have brought up her breakfast if she had eaten any.
What we might see for an improved version:
Curled up in misery worse than vertigo, sickened by the violent images flashing unwanted through her mind, Martie gagged. As the images intensified, fierce spasms of retching tried to bring up her breakfast, but she hadn’t eaten any.
Logic for making improvements:
- How does one person huddle? By dictionary definition, that’s possible, but many readers associate the word with sports and what happens with groups on the playing field. Therefore, curled up is better than huddled forward.
- What does abject mean? Ask a dozen people, and odds are good that they’ll all think of the word object, which isn’t the same thing. The word means “miserable,” or “hopeless.” So then abject misery means miserable misery, which is redundant, isn’t it? We could leave the word out, or we might say “in severe misery.”
- What is misery? A general term for emotional pain, but a more specific term will create a better visual. What was the feeling like, or what was it worse than? Perhaps instead of “severe misery,” we could use “misery worse than vertigo.”
- In her point of view, the violent images aren’t apparently sickening her. If they were, her misery wouldn’t be severe. They are sickening her, so we must leave out apparently.
- Water spurts. Blood spurts. But images? The spurting metaphor doesn’t work as well as appearing or Let’s use flashing.
- What made the gagging evolve? The images must have become more intense, so why don’t we say that instead of repeating the gagged word?
- Readers might appreciate two shorter sentences instead of a very long one. If we end the first sentence with “Martie gagged,” we have emphasis on gagged because it’s the last word before the period, which would be good.
