DO NOT OVERWRITE
PART 5; CHAPTER 6 - PAGE 72
Sometimes writers, especially those who are inexperienced, think that in order for their work to be good, it has to be jam-packed with similies and metaphores, with noun modifying adjectives, one after the other just bombarding you with information not neccesarely important for the reader to know. Resulting in a drift from the main point of the sentence or action.
Of course at times, things like complex and elaborate writing filled with detail can be benificial, but that doesn't mean you must write with that same level of description and detail. Enough is enough my friend. Know when to push, and when to hold back.
Here are some helpful examples to show you what I mean:
Version 1
The low hills lying in rows across the dry, narrow valley of the Ebro were long and dirty off-white tinged with streaks of brownish yellow, like the exposed teeth of an old grinning plowhorse. This side of the dusty valley was hot as an oven; there was no relieving shade and no sheltering trees and the overheated adobe station was forever trapped between two sharp running lines of heat-shimmering train rails in the blistering afternoon sun. Close against the side of the lonely station there was the warm, choking shadow of the claustrophobic building and a still curtain, made of vibrantly-colored strings of brightly-painted bamboo beads, hung slantingly across the open door into the dark, mysterious bar, to keep out unwanted buzzing flies. The tall, athletic American in his light suit and hat and the beautiful, blonde girl with him sat at a small rickety table in the hot shade, outside the isolated building. It was very hot, like a desert, and the express from Barcelona would come chugging down the rails in forty minutes. It stopped briefly at this lonely junction for a spare two minutes and went to Madrid.
'What should we drink?' the girl asked quietly, wiping her glowing face with the back of one delicate hand. She had taken off her straw hat and put it on the round, white-painted table.
'It's pretty hot,' the man said tiredly.
OR
Version 2
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.
'What should we drink?' the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.
'It's pretty hot,' the man said.
The low hills lying in rows across the dry, narrow valley of the Ebro were long and dirty off-white tinged with streaks of brownish yellow, like the exposed teeth of an old grinning plowhorse. This side of the dusty valley was hot as an oven; there was no relieving shade and no sheltering trees and the overheated adobe station was forever trapped between two sharp running lines of heat-shimmering train rails in the blistering afternoon sun. Close against the side of the lonely station there was the warm, choking shadow of the claustrophobic building and a still curtain, made of vibrantly-colored strings of brightly-painted bamboo beads, hung slantingly across the open door into the dark, mysterious bar, to keep out unwanted buzzing flies. The tall, athletic American in his light suit and hat and the beautiful, blonde girl with him sat at a small rickety table in the hot shade, outside the isolated building. It was very hot, like a desert, and the express from Barcelona would come chugging down the rails in forty minutes. It stopped briefly at this lonely junction for a spare two minutes and went to Madrid.
'What should we drink?' the girl asked quietly, wiping her glowing face with the back of one delicate hand. She had taken off her straw hat and put it on the round, white-painted table.
'It's pretty hot,' the man said tiredly.
OR
Version 2
The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun. Close against the side of the station there was the warm shadow of the building and a curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door into the bar, to keep out flies. The American and the girl with him sat at a table in the shade, outside the building. It was very hot and the express from Barcelona would come in forty minutes. It stopped at this junction for two minutes and went to Madrid.
'What should we drink?' the girl asked. She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.
'It's pretty hot,' the man said.
I don't know about you, but I started to get lost in the second sentence of version 1.
I'm too overwhelmed by the overly descriptive detail of each scene, how the heat is like train-rails or how this is like that and so on. It reaches the point where there's too much going on that you lose the important information the writer originally wanted the reader to know, before he/she got carried away in a tsunami of adjectives, similies, adverbs and and other unneccesary stuff that's too much.
I'm too overwhelmed by the overly descriptive detail of each scene, how the heat is like train-rails or how this is like that and so on. It reaches the point where there's too much going on that you lose the important information the writer originally wanted the reader to know, before he/she got carried away in a tsunami of adjectives, similies, adverbs and and other unneccesary stuff that's too much.
K.I.S.S
So in conclusion, Keep It Simple Stupid.
Example source: http://literarylab.blogspot.jp/2009/08/overwritten-prose.html