BY HELEN BRAIN
Master the art of writing with a florist’s precision. Discover how trimming excess words transforms cluttered prose into powerful imagery.
I knew nothing about flower arranging. My approach was just to bung all the stems into the vase until they stood up kind of straight – or until I couldn’t fit any more in.
But then I started watching YouTube shorts by a Chinese florist called Mr_Gong. He produces these astonishingly beautiful arrangements.
First, he creates a structure for the vase using cut-off lengths of stem. Then, he carefully inserts just the right stems, one at a time, adds leaves or greenery and cuts them to the shape he wants, and finally – and this is where I shriek, ‘No dude, you can’t cut off a lily flower!’ – he snips off extra flowers on each stem to create a perfectly balanced whole, where each blossom has room to really shine.
Minimal design = profound results
I see where he’s going, and I love the end result, but man, it hurts to cut off a beautiful lily flower.
But when I watch him, I think about how he’s so successful because of two key things. For starters, he creates the structure for the arrangement first, which allows each element to be shown to its best advantage.
And secondly, he edits. He doesn’t just chuck everything in. Even when the stems are chosen and added with the greatest care, he still goes back at the end and trims back the excess so that what remains really stands out.
The problem with cluttered writing
So if you’re a particularly articulate person who loves detail and description, you might find that you throw in many adjectives when you write. You want to express so many things – but that’s the equivalent of my flower-arranging style. You probably end up with poor structure and too much detail. The result? Your reader gets bored and tired and shuts the book.
When you’re writing, I think it’s best to choose just the most important noun in a sentence and give it one, well-chosen adjective. Let the emphasis fall on that noun.
Here’s an example of everything bunged into one sentence:
They lay back on the soft, warm, plaid blanket and watched the dappled green leaves dance playfully on the sturdy branches of the ancient, magnificent oak tree.
Here’s how to fix it:
First, find the most important noun – it could be either the leaves or the oak tree.
If it’s leaves, the most important adjective is ‘dappled’. Leaves are usually green, so you can cut that word.
Then, if you cut almost all of the other description, you end up with something more powerful.
They lay back on the blanket and watched the dappled leaves dance on the branches of the oak tree.
Or you could choose the tree as your most important noun. In which case, you don’t want both ancient and majestic. If it’s big enough to be magnificent it’s going to be very old, so I’d go with this:
They lay back on the blanket and watched the leaves dance on the branches of the magnificent oak tree.
In both examples, the mind is drawn to the dancing leaves that create a strong, evocative image.
So, if you find that your writing feels a bit heavy and you can’t figure out why, check those adjectives – you may be crowding the vase.
About the Author
Helen Brain is the author of over 60 books for children, an adult memoir and many short stories.
In 1998, she won an ATKV award for her novel Tamara and her novel Noem my Kat was a runner-up for an ATKV award in 2001. Three of her books have been selected for the SACBF (South African Children’s Book Forum) Honours List. In 2006 Helen was nominated for a Women Demand Dignity “White Ribbon” Award.
Helen tutors the hugely popular Basics of Creative Writing Course, as well as the Write a Children’s Book Course at the Writers’ College. She has tutored thousands of students at the Writers’ College since 2007. Read more about Helen here.
