When is wordy just too wordy?

[arianne]

We've all read those books where the sun takes fifty pages or so to rise (and then fifty more pages about how the hero and heroine felt when watching this wonderful sunrise).

However, I sometimes found myself writing long sentences, not flowery description actually, but kind of longish anyway.

Example I have used when talking to people about this, is where one of the characters smashes a pane of glass with his fist, and the subsequent description goes “...the slivers [of glass] showered down to disappear into the dark of the pavement”.

I personally like this, but I'm wondering if maybe it's too wordy? Should the glass just shower down? In a few simple words? Or just have the glass fall down instead?

Thoughts?

[Snowleopard]

I'd suggest getting it down first and then going back and looking to see if it's too wordy.
You want your words to evoke the scene and to flow - and there's no right or wrong amount of words.
Please note that I come from a background of trying to write scripts so I'm used to trying to keep the word count down
and when I'm writing prose I have to remember that I have room to be more descriptive.

[Starbeam]

Do what Snow suggested--first get everything written down.  Then you can go back through.  I wouldn't worry too much on being too wordy until you've gotten through several revisions and tightened the story.  Then you can worry about whether or not it's too wordy.  And sometimes, all you need is a slight little tweak.  My take on that would be "the slivers showered down and disappeared into the dark of the pavement."

So basically--get it written and worry about it later.  Also, there are times where it might be preferable to keep it simple, and other times you want that little bit extra to keep people interested.  One way to look at that is along the lines of "Will this keep people reading?" and "Does this keep the story going forward and keep the tension?"

Oh, and the type of story you're writing can also make a difference in the way things are done.  An epic fantasy is usually written in a completely different style than an urban fantasy.

[Paynesgrey]

I'd say something is "too wordy" when the prose goes beyond setting the atmosphere and begins to obsure the story you're trying to tell.  When your Average Intended Reader starts to have trouble tracking what's going on amidst the descriptive artwork. 

Try feeding a several pages to your friends/betas/writing group associates and say "what's it about?"  If they have trouble telling you, then you might want to strengthen the central narrative and ease up on the atmospherics.  Personally, I like the bit you gave us.  Just have to make sure you've got enough solid carpentry beneath the varnish to hold things together.   

[Paynesgrey]

Example of "too wordy with no good point". 

Stephen King. 

There's a chair in a room where something happens.  Or doesn't happen.  The main character(s) aren't even in the room.  Rather, a minor character who serves the main character a hamburger is in the room with the chair at some point during his childhood.

Author then spools off a page or two describing said chair, then 50 pages of an anecdote regarding an old woman who had a similar chair 60 years ago, and how she really liked to eat soup with a certain brand of crackers when sitting in that chair, and how the cracker company was owned by a fellow who didn't have a chair anything like the one the old lady is eating soup and crackers in, and there was a nephew of hers who found the chair kind of creepy, and mentioned it to the minor character who's hamburger serving function is or is delayed by .12 seconds as he briefly brainfarted and thought about the chair instead of promptly saying "do you want fries with that?"

Application of Starbeam's "will it keep people reading" and "does it advance the story" screams a big howling "nope, not really."

As Snowleapord and Starbeam both suggested, get the framework laid out first.  You can then wander around adding atmosphere and prose to flesh things out without being as likely to meander too far away from your intended path.

[Starbeam]

I read a blog post earlier today, and if I can find it later will try to link it, and it mentions about the details and moving the story.  The context was what authors can learn from a trip to Disneyland/world.  This particular bit was about how Disney uses the little details to add to the experience, the example being at the Animal Kingdom park and how the cement is pressed with leaf patterns so that it doesn't detract from the atmosphere and stand out as cement.  I know it was worded much better than that.

**Here's the link I mentioned about Disney.

Also, PG's example of Stephen King is a good one.  Also, King has a good example in On Writing--I forget exactly, I think the sentence example is something like "The man stopped to have a bowel movement." Or something like that, and King says to say what you mean, i.e. "The man stopped to take a shit."  I know that one is right, though I never quite remember the other couple examples he gives. And I'm not sure where my copy of the book is.  And with King, he's definitely an example of listen to what he says, but don't do what he does. Cause it's extremely contradictory.

[meg_evonne]

Sorry, I don't think I have enough of the story to give you an answer.

Yes, this might be one of those famous babies that we are supposed to cut.

But, this might be a wonderful pre-set up for what happens to the main character over the course of the book. In which case, it earns its place in the paragraph.

I agree. I personally like it a great deal and would be loath to cut it. I like detail that draws me in, but detail that earns its place for more than one reason is far superior. Write and decide later, but never cut and delete, instead cut and save it somewhere. You might really want it back in there later.

Description and dialog need more than one reason to be on the page. If it ain't revealing or adding tone or setting up something coming, it isn't working hard enough and you are being lazy!  LOL

[Kali]

I dunno.  It depends on the scene.

Something like that isn't too wordy if the scene is dramatic and emotional.  If the scene is tense and action-oriented, you want to keep your word choices short and punchy.  Sentence structure can echo the mood of the scene.

Not must.  There are almost no "musts" in writing.  You can end a dramatic, emotional scene with "He wept."  Short words, short sentence, lots of impact.  But in general, if you're writing a fight scene, you don't want lots of purple prose with lush description and poignant word choices.  If you're writing the post-death emotional trauma scene, you don't necessarily want lots of colorful, bright verbs with choppy paragraphs.

Edit:  Oh, my nitpick?  They wouldn't drop *into* the darkness of the pavement unless there's some kind of shadow being cast by the pavement.  They'd drop *onto* the darkness of the pavement, which implies there's pavement that's not well-lit and is thus dark.

[Paynesgrey]

For some examples of evocative, atmospheric writing that still carries the story, I'd suggest Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and John D. MacDonald's Darker Than Amber.  It's the sort of writing where you can smell the wet pavement but the story and characters aren't overwhelmed.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Depends on the style you are doing.

If you're aiming for Alexandre Dumas, an average sentence length of fifty words is not too many; and Dumas endures.

[Shecky]

Depends on the style you are doing.

If you're aiming for Alexandre Dumas, an average sentence length of fifty words is not too many; and Dumas endures.

There are some readers who think it's more like "and Dumas just doesn't end."

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

There are some readers who think it's more like "and Dumas just doesn't end."

People keep going back to the first Musketeers book and Monte Cristo, at any rate.  I'll grant precious few people read Louise de la Vallieres these days, and I can see why.

[Paynesgrey]

Yeah.  but you have to consider your target audience, assuming you have one.  Dumas isn't that likely going to sell to people who like a crisper, more modern writing style.  Now, if the writer's goal is to emulate a certain writing style or explore/invent a new style without regard for whether or not anyone's going to read it, that's another matter. 

In terms of beginning to write though, it seems to me one should master the basics of description, characterization and storytelling before trying to push the style envelope.  Much the way Picasso mastered the fundamentals of accurately depicting what he saw before venturing into more stylized work.  (Also helps to establish a reader base, if the goal is not simply to write for the sake of writing but to share those stories with more than a handful of friends or niche readers.  When the base is established, they will hopefully follow the writer as his style evolves.   

[jeno]

Another issue to keep in mind is your pacing.

Lovingly described details slow down the action of your story. This is better for introspective passages, or when you want to Make A Point. Short, choppy descriptions (or no descriptions at all) speed things up. It's why thrillers and page turners in general aren't usually praised for their scintillating prose.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Yeah.  but you have to consider your target audience, assuming you have one.  Dumas isn't that likely going to sell to people who like a crisper, more modern writing style.

Dumas may not be an NY Times bestseller, but he's pretty much never gone out of print for more than 150 years, so there is an audience for that.

In terms of beginning to write though, it seems to me one should master the basics of description, characterization and storytelling before trying to push the style envelope.  Much the way Picasso mastered the fundamentals of accurately depicting what he saw before venturing into more stylized work.

I think we may be hitting a philosophical disagreement here, in that I don't see style as distinct from those other elements; everything one writes has a style, and that is a thing it seems worth being conscious of. Picasso's early more naturalistic work is work in a naturalistic style, no ?