Re: Deleting ing and ly words.

Kevin J. Cheek wrote:

There's been comments of late that ing and ly words weaken a story. Is
there any truth to this?


To paraphrase Mr Tulip, not --ing likely!

Adverbs with a generic verb *as a substitute for the right specific verb*
are weak, not because they are adverbs but because they are a quick and
dirty substitute for the mot juste, the lightning bug rather than the
lightning. Same goes for adverbial phrases which don't end in -ly.


"He walked quickly," or, "he walked at a good rate" are not weak in the
right place, but they are weak as substitutes for "he strode", "he rushed",
"he hastened" or any other of the distinct possibilities covered.

"He counted the coins out grudgingly," or "he doled out the coins with a
piteous expression, as of Billy Bunter sharing out a food parcel" don't use
adverbs as a substitute for a more specific verb, though one is clearly
more general-purpose than the other.

I don't get why -ing should be considered weak at all, unless we're talking
about its adjectival use. In that case I suppose the complaint is a
similar one concerning qualified general nouns: a 'fighting man' may be a
warrior, soldier, brawler, martial artist, or whatever, and should not be
used as a substitute for any of the above -- only when you want to actually
say 'fighting man', with its own particular connotations.

If your style calls for a lot of -ings or -lys, most or all of them should
probably stay there, *unless* they are part of bodged phrases which stand
for what you wanted to say rather than actually conveying it. In those
cases, IME that's what redrafting is for, the bodge-up being a mere
placeholder to allow one to get on with the story for the while.

(Possibly relevant datapoint: my style is naturally a bit ornate unless I'm
deliberately paring it down for some reason, and I do usually need to strip
out a certain amount of bodge, waffle, and underbrush on a redraft.)

--
Cheers,

Gray
.

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