I read an article in the Daily Mail online. A man re-discovered a letter which he received from Raould Dahl, responding to a request from a then 17 year old for comments on a school project short story.
I would agree with Dahl that too many adjectives slow down an action story. However, different types of stories and audiences and subject matter require different styles.
I disagree with the example Dahl chose. 'She had a bosom' is a nonsense. Every woman has a bosom. to say that implies the writer has a one track mind. (He didn't care whether she was intelligent or had a job. She had a bosom. That was enough.)
The first four word sentence is terse. It did not create any picture in my mind's eye of the woman, but of the writer or speaker.
'A shapely, prominent bosom', however, focuses my mind on a vision of a rather well-endowed woman. A novelist has time for such long sentences. Descriptions are expected in novels as a pause between action.
But a short story writer might need to cut down on adjectives simply to cram more action into one thousand words. One thousand is the limit for the many modern short stories, because that number or words will fit into on one or two pages in a magazine with advertisements down the side.
***
Readers' comments on the same article express surprise that a letter from such a famous person had been mislaid and only just discovered.
The loss of a letter does not surprise me at all. A single sheet of paper can easily sit in an untouched file for years, stored in an attic or at the back of a cupboard. Today's houses are filled with paperwork. Writers and creative people are notorious collectors.
It takes a scientific mind to catalogue every paper and be able to locate everything.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2983602/Dear-Jay-asking-Roald-Dahl-s-brutally-honest-letter-boy-17-asked-author-advice-Level-project.html
Angela Lansbury BA Hons is an author with books on lulu.com, videos on Youtube and more blog posts on travel and other subjects. She is also a freelance photo-journalist, author and caricaturist and gives speeches and trains speakers.
I would agree with Dahl that too many adjectives slow down an action story. However, different types of stories and audiences and subject matter require different styles.
I disagree with the example Dahl chose. 'She had a bosom' is a nonsense. Every woman has a bosom. to say that implies the writer has a one track mind. (He didn't care whether she was intelligent or had a job. She had a bosom. That was enough.)
The first four word sentence is terse. It did not create any picture in my mind's eye of the woman, but of the writer or speaker.
'A shapely, prominent bosom', however, focuses my mind on a vision of a rather well-endowed woman. A novelist has time for such long sentences. Descriptions are expected in novels as a pause between action.
But a short story writer might need to cut down on adjectives simply to cram more action into one thousand words. One thousand is the limit for the many modern short stories, because that number or words will fit into on one or two pages in a magazine with advertisements down the side.
***
Readers' comments on the same article express surprise that a letter from such a famous person had been mislaid and only just discovered.
The loss of a letter does not surprise me at all. A single sheet of paper can easily sit in an untouched file for years, stored in an attic or at the back of a cupboard. Today's houses are filled with paperwork. Writers and creative people are notorious collectors.
It takes a scientific mind to catalogue every paper and be able to locate everything.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2983602/Dear-Jay-asking-Roald-Dahl-s-brutally-honest-letter-boy-17-asked-author-advice-Level-project.html
Angela Lansbury BA Hons is an author with books on lulu.com, videos on Youtube and more blog posts on travel and other subjects. She is also a freelance photo-journalist, author and caricaturist and gives speeches and trains speakers.
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