Jasper was walking slowly along the road when a car came suddenly round the corner. The driver frantically hit the brakes and the car quickly came to a halt. The driver leaned across and spoke furiously to Jasper through the open window. Jasper was completely bemused by this, as he had no recollection of having seen the man before.
To the inexperienced writer they can seem like a great way of describing things: in my horrible piece above, Jasper was indeed walking slowly, so you might think that I have done the job of conjuring up the scene here. But how was he walking? Slowly tells us nothing much. Was he ambling, strolling, wandering, creeping, weaving...? The list is long and each word has different associations and nuances, so choose the one which comes closest to what you mean.
A car came suddenly around the corner. Hmm. Don't like that very much. It's bland and colourless. How much more dramatic to say swerved, or screeched, or skidded. Similarly, instead of The driver frantically hit the brakes and the car quickly came to a halt, how about something along the lines of, The driver slammed on the brakes and the car lurched to a halt? There's more economy, and with economy comes accuracy and narrative tension.
In the same vein, shouted, or yelled, or screamed, or bellowed all carry a greater descriptive payload than spoke furiously and use only one word instead of two. And in my phrase completely bemused the word completely is (completely) redundant: bemused does all the work for you.
Nuts and bolts stuff, I know, and just before the weekend too, but the devil is in the detail (perhaps I'll cover cliches next week...)
No comments:
Post a Comment