So, which adjectives are ripe for killing off?

Normally, you would ditch the common ones. You need to identify which adjectives are interpretive and which are descriptive.

Interpretive adjectives are normally the common adjectives and are not precise. Depending on the experience your reader is having with your story, these adjectives are open to interpretation. For example, the sentence “oh, it’s a cute little girl!” could mean a baby, a toddler, a prepubescent girl, a third-grader, or if used in a sarcastic manner, a full-grown woman! With no other information, a reader is likely to see a girl aged three to ten and don’t forget the build and height. That makes  “little” an interpretive adjective because, again, it is open to interpretation. Do you want your readers to know or guess about the little girl?

Descriptive adjectives, on the other hand, are objective. They are unlikely to be interpreted wrongly and are more likely to get your message across:

 Interpretive – a long journey – could mean days or weeks, even longer

Descriptive –  a two-day journey – means just that

Interpretive -  a bright day – could mean it is or isn’t sunny; there could be snow reflecting a weak sunlight

Descriptive – a sunny morning – means the sun is out

Interpretive – a beautiful woman – could mean inner beauty or outer beauty. She could be slender, petite, athletic, voluptuous, curvy, like a model and so on. Beauty is seen differently to everyone

Descriptive – an elegant woman – tends to convey a woman who is stylish, impeccably groomed and graceful

The word “beautiful” does offer a lot more than “elegant” but it is rather vague and it could be interpreted as anything.

Kill Off The Interpretive Adjectives

If you have too many interpretive adjectives, all you do is create scenes that are vague, muddled and confusing. They make your work look immature and unprofessional too. Have a look at this sentence:

The beautiful woman wandered along the beach with a little girl. Suddenly, a big dog growled loudly.

Before you move on, think about this sentence; what image does it conjure in your mind?

What I see when I read it is a tall, slim woman with flowing blonde hair and ice-blue eyes. The little girl has blonde ringlets and a pretty pink dress on; she is about five. They are walking together on a standard pebbly beach and suddenly a nondescript dog growls.

I’ll guarantee that every one of you sees something completely different because, let’s face it, no two of us are alike, nor do we think alike. And that’s the downfall of using interpretive adjectives. It doesn’t matter what images you want to convey with your writing; everything written with those adjectives is open to the reader’s interpretation.

Rewriting that sentence using descriptive adjectives could look something like this:

A tall, slender woman wandered down a white, sandy beach, holding a five-year-old blonde-haired girl by the hand. Suddenly, a large German Shepherd appeared, growling at them fiercely.

Does that conjure up a more precise image?