Armando raised up the long and mighty sword "Harm-Bringer", glistening with the warm red blood of his foe, before bringing it down and seperating his opponent's head from body.
This is about the point where an editor begins marking up the monitor with a red pen.
Many beginning writers (and a few other writers) seem to be of the opinion that the more description you put in, the better the story.
Nothing can be further from the truth. The more efficent you are at describing something, the better off you are. If bigger and more was better, then the dragon would win, not the smaller (yet more efficent) hero.
The opening sentence is better written as:
Armando cut off his opponent's head.
Geez, but this takes all the drama from the entire thing. We want drama right?
The answer is yes, we want suspense. Suspense is good. It keeps the reader on the edge of their seat.
What is bad is sacrificing readability for suspense. Reading is the only way you can deliver an image through the written medim. If you overload the sentence with imagery, you overload the reader. If the picture isn't coming through clear on the TV, you switch the channel or turn off the T.V. Likewise, the reader puts the book down (or more likely, throws it across the room.)
In all writing, don't overload the reader. The only exception to this rule is when the character is narrating.
She had breathtakingly blonde hair, with skin that was bronze from all the bikini contests she had won. Her clothes were so tight, I could read the washing instructions- wash in warm water, with a tumble dry. She was gorgeous.
Narration like this, when done in character, is perfectly acceptable. In third person, when you are in charge of describing it, it is usually best to keep things simple.
In the case of the first paragraph I showed earlier, all I did was ask myself "What am I really trying to say?" After I figured that out, I just wrote it down.
Ultimately, the drama shouldn't come from the description. You can't dramatize a door just by describing a door. You dramatize a door by describing how characters react to it.
Grif reached for the door, but jerked his hand back when he got closer.
Creepy?
Now, we can couple Armando with a reaction and/or dialogue to make that scene really come together.
"Gryphon Lance! Attack!" Armando yelled as he cut off his opponents head.
Thus, with minor adaptation, we can take an overloaded sentence, simplify it, and then couple it with a character reaction and/or dialogue. The result is a sentence that both adds to the character, advances the story, and tells us what the character is doing.
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