A Thanksgiving turkey should be baked to a golden brown, but when it’s overdone, the cook should know what was done wrong. Sadly, writers don’t always know when they have overcooked their stories by using fancy expressions, unfamiliar words, and details that go beyond the immediate concern of the reader.
For our stories to have the greatest impact at the end of the day, we want readers to be so caught up in the action and emotion that they never notice our words. We do that by using nouns and verbs that create vivid pictures. We keep adjectives and adverbs at a bare, absolute minimum and avoid clichés like the plague. Be sure metaphors, similes, and analogies deepen the action and suspense rather than distract like a fox in the hen house. (In this paragraph, did you notice anything you think might be overdone?)
If you find yourself saying, “Wow! This is great writing,” you may be in trouble.
What do overdone expressions look like? Here are a few:
- Her hair was a golden brown that fell upon her seductive shoulders like wheat rippling in a gentle summer breeze just before sunset.
- Excitement rushed through his veins like a flash flood.
- Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city, their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N. J.” (2008 winner of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for bad writing)
Your readers deserve your best, so be sure that’s what you’re giving them.
You, the writer, want to be invisible. You don’t want to write flowery prose or use words that distract the reader from becoming immersed in the narrative. — Cheryl St.John
