I finally dropped my love for over-the-top prose

A member in my group said my writing felt 'trying too hard' and gave me a direct example of how I could simplify a paragraph. It stung, but after rewriting that section with shorter sentences I saw how much clearer the story became. Has anyone else had to humble themselves after a harsh critique?

3 comments

3 Comments

sagejackson4d ago

That thing about 'trying too hard' really hit home for me. I once wrote a scene where a character was looking out a window and described the rain as "liquid diamonds shattering against the glass" and my friend just said "it's raining, we get it." It hurt but she was right. I changed it to "rain tapped against the window" and the whole mood actually felt more real. Sometimes the fancy stuff gets in the way of the story.

victorhernandez4d ago

Respectfully disagree, flowery prose can hit hard when the mood fits the story.

kevin_williams4d ago

My buddy Mike wrote a whole chapter once where every single piece of rain was "crying tears from heaven" and "the sky's sorrow pouring down." I read it and told him straight up it sounded like a bad country song. He got defensive at first but then he read it out loud and even he started laughing halfway through. @sagejackson you nailed it with that "rain tapped against the window" change because simple words let your reader feel the scene instead of tripping over your vocabulary. Flowery stuff has its place but most of the time it is just fluff hiding the fact you don't trust your story to stand on its own. Save the fancy words for a moment that actually calls for them instead of plastering them all over everything.