No one likes to carry around baggage. And baggage in your writing makes you appear less professional.
Let’s consider some examples. See if you can find the baggage in each:
1) There’s the house that Jack built.
Such a simple sentence. What could possibly be wrong with it? There’s one extra word that isn’t necessary – the word “that.” The sentence should read like this: “There’s the house Jack built.” In real life we might use the word “that.” In a book, it’s baggage.
2) Sam hung his head and sadly left the room.
Most of the time adverbs are no-no’s in professional writing. The sentence would be better like this: “Sam hung his head and shuffled from the room.” That said, Jerry B. Jenkins would probably have a fit over the phrase “hung his head” because of its literal meaning.
3) Jennifer took the gift out of the bag.
The words “out of” can be reduced to “from” for better word economy. “Jennifer took the gift from the bag.” Additionally, the word “took” could be changed to “removed” for slightly more interesting reading.
4) “Tell me, Alex, why are you so mad?”
Think about real life speech. How often do you say someone’s name in conversation? Other than initially trying to get their attention, this rarely happens. Get rid of the name-calling: “Tell me why you’re so mad.”
5) “I’m going to the store,” said Julianne.
Editors frown on the use of attribution which, in this case, is the word “said.” Most of the time, you’re writing should make it clear who’s speaking without use of attribution. This topic deserves more attention that I may address in a later post. Suffice it to say it’s good enough just to write “I’m going to the store.”
6) Sarah tossed a bright red ball to her niece.
This one is not so cut and dried. The question is whether or not the word “bright” or the word “red” is important to the story. Yes, sometimes we want to paint colors in the readers mind, but it’s easy to go overboard. Unless there’s some reason to describe the ball in detail, this sentence would be better: “Sarah tossed a ball to her niece.” Sound boring? Not every sentence needs frills. Save your adjectives for the important stuff.
In my next post, I’ll switch gears back to my publishing journey, which is about to pick up steam.