Weeding Your Garden
by Susan Vaughan
You’ve written your best manuscript. The hero is as bold and brash as a
sunflower, or dark and mysterious as night-blooming jasmine. The heroine is
vibrant and sensitive as an orchid, or sassy and daring as a snapdragon. The
plot winds and twists through a box-hedge maze to a satisfying conclusion. Don’t
send it off to an editor without weeding your beloved prose of unnecessary and
life-draining words. Weeds ruin writing that is otherwise good and mark it
amateurish.
Plucking those weeds is one of the easier steps in revision. First, learn to
recognize weeds, so you remove the dandelion, not the phlox. Second, eradicate
them. Then you will have a manuscript an editor will read with respect.
Weak modifiers are one type of weeds. Sometimes writers use modifiers hoping to
intensify the meaning of a word or to embellish it, like ground cover around a
rose bush. Instead, the modifier weakens the original word, like witch grass
stealing the nourishment from a dahlia.
In her dream, she saw his very dark eyes and his really arrogant, chiseled face.
Delete the underlined words, and you’ll see how much more impact the description
has. Weak modifiers cluttering an entire manuscript can have deadening effect,
just as spadeleaf can smother cosmos. Here’s a partial list of weak modifiers to
avoid or use sparingly: just, so, such, very, really, even, at all, certainly,
all, definitely, exactly, right, anyway, particular. These modifiers have become
weak from overuse. Weed them out.
Hedging words, on the other hand, are intended to tone down a statement.
Instead, hedging words give the impression that the writer is uncertain. Hedging
words can turn an observation or comparison from a dramatic, striking gladiola
to an ordinary petunia.
After a few weeks working outdoors, the sun had
tanned him a somewhat sexy-looking bronzish hue.
The wind sort of ruffled his rather golden hair.
That was almost unbearable to read through. The ish in bronzish is hedging, as
if the writer can’t decide the shade of his tan. Somewhat implies uncertainty if
he’s sexy or not. Looking is a weed, unnecessary. Rather and
sort of are the
ultimate in vacillation or laziness. Use the exact phrase or reference to
express exactly what you mean. Some hedging expressions to use with caution are
usually, probably, maybe, fairly, perhaps, somewhat, quite, and a little. Vague
references and hedging words show a lack of conviction and allow weeds to
overrun a garden--or a story.
A gardener’s or writer’s output is never lazy or hasty. It should display the
best you talents can produce. Weeds in your manuscript can damage the impression
others--especially editors--have of your writing. Dig them out ruthlessly.
Ridding your writing of weedy clutter will allow it to bloom.
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