Did some much-needed catching up on my reading this weekend and found a gem of a post from The Economist's Prospero blog tucked into my Pocket. It's definitely worth a read by anyone who writes or works with writers (which pretty much covers everybody, doesn't it)?
The piece offers a helpful and thoughtful response to the "avoid adjectives" advice a lot of us hear all the live-long day. The examples are instructive and the tone is friendly, making it both an actionable and enjoyable read.
Use good words, not bad ones
One of my favorite passages: "Keeping to a tight word count forces the writer to think about which words absolutely have to be there, and makes it less likely that the editor will kill the writer’s darlings. So while simple formulae such as 'write with nouns and verbs' may not be brilliant style advice, one short piece of advice is worth taking: edit."
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