Overwriting, Obscurity,
& Mannerisms

104}BART’S SHIRT: SPURTING PROSE

Going too far out of our way to avoid journalese can lead to overwriting, or trading accuracy for effect. As in this sentence:

“Spurts of liquid lava hurled from Susan’s eyes onto Bart’s shirt, creating a random pattern of dark spots on the sky blue fabric.”

The sentence is ego-driven, working too hard to impress the reader, who doesn’t want to be impressed but to visualize the thing being described. “Spurts of liquid lava”? I assume these are tears, which don’t spurt but merely drip onto Bart’s celestial shirt. Creating a random pattern? Sure, but the reader doesn’t need to be told so; it’s obvious. What all this means is something like, “Susan’s tears fell on Bart’s shirt.” That gets the point across without spewing any lava.

Pitching your voice higher doesn’t mean finding complicated ways to say simple things; it means paying attention to syntax and rhythms, to precision; creating vivid images out of words chosen for their solidity, accuracy, and efficiency. Eliminate any word, phrase, or sentence that doesn’t help the reader see—or worse, that interferes with his seeing accurately.

Though not poetic, “Susan’s tears fell on Bart’s shirt” isn’t a bad sentence: It does its job; it wastes no words; it’s swift and lean, with a pleasing iambic cadence. The moment demands nothing more. That Bart’s shirt is sky blue tells me nothing I really need to know (if it were of raw silk, or denim, that might add something).

It’s not the words in a sentence that make it work well, but the thought behind the words. A sentence works because it’s true, it’s solid, it’s authentic. Whereas the idea behind volcanic tears creating an archipelago of dark spots is trumped up, insincere, sentimental. Forced.

Write solid sentences that waste not a word, and already you’ve moved beyond journalese.

105}A PURPLE HANDSHAKE:
OVERWRITING

People who overwrite are often among the most gifted novices. Still, because it takes talent to overwrite doesn’t mean you should do it.

Say you’ve written this paragraph:

Erin took a half step towards Sam; he countered with his hand. Unnoticeably she balked, and then quickly extended her hand as well. They shook and Sam’s strong hands one last time pressed against her disillusioned flesh, and he squeezed her hand softly, regretfully, universes of meaning behind one simple handshake.

Leaving aside the glaring excesses (“universes of meaning”), we quickly feel that emotions are being forced on us. The author isn’t just letting her characters shake hands; she’s pumping up emotion and “meaning.” Nearly every verb drags along its adverb like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail; and adverbs tell us how the scene is being played. They crowd out the reader’s imagination.

Suppose, instead, that we already know Erin and Sam well. We know their circumstances, where they work, how they live, their habits, what they look like, the sounds of their voices, their thoughts, their hopes, their dreams. Now when the author puts her characters into a scene together, she and her adverbs can buzz off and leave her characters alone to talk. Before parting the lovers shake hands.

At that point, if the author has done her job properly, in place of the above purple passage she might write:

They shook hands.

A chill may visit the reader’s spine, because he knows, without being told, what that handshake means—that these characters may not see one another again.

106}SIMPLE ACTIONS DEMAND SIMPLE
WORDS: IZZY’S SNORES

Simple sentences, too, are part of a good style. They add texture and variety. They also steer us away from convolution.

A student writes: “As Izzy’s snores continued to ricochet all around the room, Becky’s eyes were the only ones that remained wide open.” Translation: “Izzy’s snores kept Becky awake.”

While complex thoughts may demand complex language, simple thoughts are seldom well served by fancy language. The trouble with journalese is not that it uses simple sentences; it’s that it never reaches beyond them even when the occasion calls for it, as it doesn’t here. The sentence, “Izzy’s snoring kept Becky awake,” is unimpeachable. It wastes no syllables and puts the emphasis where it belongs.

Concise, straightforward sentences are the mortar between bricks—those complex sentences that swoop and turn, that convey vivid imagery or subtle observations through metaphor, rhythm, or other poetic devices. They are a part of stylish writing, but without simple sentences stylish prose can’t function or even exist.

107}MORE SENTENCES LOST
IN TRANSLATION

Of John Updike’s habitual forays into overwriting, Norman Mailer once gibed: “Like many a good young writer before him [who] doesn’t know exactly what do when action lapses … he cultivates his private vice, he writes. ”⁵⁰

Although they may not be as accomplished in this “private vice” as Updike, that hasn’t stopped many of my students from engaging in it.

“Writing” in italics (or quotation marks) is bad writing. It’s writing that makes mountains out of anthills, that’s affected or pompous or both. And the harder these writers try to impress us, the less impressive they are.

When I come across examples of writing, my first impulse is to translate.

“She wore a type of expression that invariably promises a subsequent question from most people, a quizzical expression that echoes the question ‘why?’ before the word is ever spoken.” Translation: “She cocked her head.”

“Suddenly their conversation was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.” Translation: “The doorbell rang.”

108}HAIR GEYSERS: TOO MUCH OF A
GOOD THING

Sometimes an author’s strengths and weaknesses are combined in the same sentence. Here are some mixed examples:

Knotty red hair geysered in a crude ponytail from the apex of her head, giving the impression of a mad cheerleader, and the apartment smelled of cocoa.

Here “geyser” makes a welcome fresh appearance as a verb. I also appreciate the judicious nose for apartment odors. But the two sensations feel sort of jammed together against their will. And how to reconcile a geyser with a cheerleader? And since a ponytail isn’t likely to erupt from elsewhere, “apex of her head” seems strained.

Later in the same story: “being a hostess that night had merely happened to her the way she might get splashed by a passing car.” The comparison is funny and apt, but a bit awkwardly phrased (try, “like getting splashed by a passing car”).

Later still: “She lifted her hands from the steering wheel; her unmanned sedan tracked straight and true down the carpool lane, like a bowling ball down the gutter.” Thanks to that gratuitous simile, the sentence itself bowls a split.