Aphelion

I think this author used up about thirty years' worth of modifiers writing this. All in fresh and intriguing combinations, but still -- it was delightful for a few paragraphs, but started to thicken pretty quickly. By about the three-quarter mark I was seriously thinking about abandoning the story unfinished.

I've seen this kind of writing before. Way back when -- maybe thirty years ago -- Asimov's mag discovered a new author who used the same trick. Modifiers chained up two or three deep for every noun and verb in the whole damn thing except for the occasional dialog. The author had to be laughing, getting payed by the word, but if I recall, I wasn't even able to finish the first story he/she wrote. Worse, someone in the mag's editorial department fell in LOVE with the stuff and started publishing everything that author wrote. That might have been the reason I let my subscription lapse; I don't remember.

Point to take home, Copper -- vary the pace. A little of this goes a long way -- a DAMN long way. Use moderation. Or, write poetry.

Let's see, what else -- oh yeah -- character motivation was nearly incomprehensible. No surprise, I guess; they couldn't breathe under all those adjectives and adverbs. Oh, wait, it was something out of some obscure mythology. Plot? Uh, "kill the witch"?

Sorry.

Lester,

Explain this modifier problem by using quotes from his work and then comment on what is wrong and why - if you have the time. I'd like to understand what you are referencing.

Mark

Well, I ran the whole story through EditMinion (dot com) (in two chunks), and there really weren't that many adverbs. Editminion doesn't look for adjectives, though, and there were lots of those, often double-stacked, as in:

The boy blinked once, twice, fanning vehement red irises with feminine charcoal lashes.

It's just too dense with this stuff. That's why I suggested poetry.

Yes, it's a style choice. Just happens to be one that irritates me.

Related to the heavy use of adjectives is the equally heavy use of metaphor and simile. Editminion shows this 6014-word story as having the word "like" occurring 38 times, tied for fourth most frequent. Since nobody in this story likes each other, it's fairly safe to assume that each of those "likes" is a simile, and that doesn't count the metaphors. It's swimming in the stuff. That's just way too much indirect description for my taste.

I'll say it again: the author did a fine job keeping his descriptions sounding fresh. I just think he overused his style choice.

I have rejected more than one story on the grounds that the overly-dense and florid language got in the way of the story (a tendency that has been labeled "purple prose" long before I assumed the Editor title). This one came close to the line, but the storytelling was strong enough to outweigh the reader-unfriendly aspects. (It's the ones where everything is painted in day-glo colors and drenched in perfume (or wrapped in black silk, depending on the setting) BEFORE anything interesting happens that bug me.)

Extreme examples:

minimalist: Hemingway in "The Old Man and the Sea"
florid / purple: Clark Ashton Smith (a contemporary of Robert E. Howard, but more like Coleridge than Howard)
downright gooey: yer average Harlequin Romance or "paranormal romance" (identifiable by the bare-chested Fabio look-alike on the cover -- supposedly a vampire or werewolf instead of a pirate or disgraced nobleman (or whatever the hell your average romance novel hero is these days).

Some of Seanan McGuire's stuff might land on the same shelves as the books I mean, but hers are funny and tough-talking and violent. A McGuire heroine (and her protagonists are mostly female) would only rip HER bodice to get at her backup weapons (guns or knives, not boobs, thank you very much).

Happy medium types: Heinlein, Spider Robinson (although he can be sentimental as well as punny), Joe Haldeman, ...