Stop Hating on Adjectives!

A common admonition in recent creative writing pedagogy is, “Cut as many adjectives as possible.” I would like to propose that this rule springs from mere prejudice. There’s nothing inherently wrong with adjectives; they’re just out of fashion. In fact (and in fiction), they can be used, in surprising abundance, to good, even brilliant effect.

Today’s writers, I guess, consider themselves superior to, say, Charles Dickens. And Mark Twain. And Henry James. Not to mention James Joyce and Leo Tolstoy. Let’s take a look, shall we, at cold hard evidence.

Twain’s writing was sometimes spare in terms of adjectives, but other times richly spiced, as in this excerpt from Life on the Mississippi.

I still keep in mind a certain wonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me. A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distance the red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating, black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling upon the water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings, that were as many-tinted as an opal;