I want to avoid over-writing, but I can't seem to hit a balance between barren sentences and more 'descriptive' ones. It's always either mechanical and lifeless or somewhat lively, yet choking. Does anyone know how to combat this? Or will my prose be in constant need of the Heimlich Maneuver?
Personally, I wouldn't worry. Write to excess, if that's what you like to do. It's much easier to cut back later on, if need be, than try to add in the missing emotion and engagement to a flattened writing style. Just make sure you allow yourself a bit of rest time after you've written something. By that, I mean put it away for weeks, even months, before going back to edit it. The overwriting will jump out and attempt to strangle you, once you've passed the proud birthing stage and are into the 'keeping the teenager in line' stage. Just cut it back at that point. I love your avatar, by the way! Welcome to the forum.
Like @jannert said, if it is easier for ya. Or... You could depending on how important it is describe things based upon that. It really depends on your style and what you like best ultimately. Just avoid redundancy and you will be fine.
People either love him or hate him, but one of the things I like about Raymond Chandler's writing is that he strikes that balance. If you haven't read any of his stuff, check it out. I love descriptive writing, but Chandler knew exactly where the longer descriptions were needed and when to be brief. Caveat: It's also easy to slip into accidentally imitating him (one line paragraphs, anyone?).
I like to write a lot of detail in my rough draft to the extent that I find myself often repeating myself. That way later when I got back in editing, I have multiple choices of where and how to get information across.
Chandler writes in a certain pared-down, arm's-length style which appeals to some people. However, he doesn't appeal to me at all, and I could never get through any of his books because I didn't like his characters and wasn't engaged in his kind of story. While it's useful to read Chandler, as Shenanigator suggests, Chandler is only an example of how to write 'like that.' He's only one of many writers who employ many different styles to tell stories. By all means read him—but only copy his technique if his stories appeal to you and you want to write 'like that.'
Oh, that was one of my bugbears ...repeating myself. It was funny how often I did that in my first draft. I'd explain something, then explain it again using different words for clarification or expansion. You're right, that it gives you more than one way to say the same thing, and I wouldn't worry about cutting it during a first draft. But it was definitely 'overwriting' and I was happy to cut nearly every instance down to one during the edit. It certainly shortened my inflated word count by quite a lot. People who don't ever over-write are like people who keep a spotlessly clean house and rigorously throw everything away the second it's not needed. They will never know the satisfaction of deciding to have a 'clear out' and thinking 'wow, how did I ever accumulate so much junk?' and then grinning from ear to ear as they watch the dump truck carry all that excess crap away.
I do it a page at a time. I write (roughly) one page of text, go back over it, see what needs expansion/more emotion/more detail and fill it in. I almost never overwrite and if I do, I just rethink it, find another way to say the same thing in a shorter sentence. I agree it's sometimes hard to find the right balance. When I come back to the laptop the next day, I re-read what I did the previous day again and go through the same process. It's timely, but it works - for me at least, but what I've learned mostly over the years is that it's whatever works for you - everyone's process is different. Good luck
I do wonder what precisely you mean by over writing. I absolutely adore decadent literature and think people shouldn't be so scared of writing it if they know how to use it to affect. However using a barren sentence to affect is also important. I don't think there's a one size fits all.
But @jannert , you do know the "pared down style" usually gives way to description at important points in the story, right? (You may not have read far enough in to see it.) That's why I specifically gave Chandler as an example. The OP asked how to balance it, and Chandler is a good example of that balance. In parody over the years people have tended to focus only on the parred-down aspect of his writing, but he actually could be a damn good descriptive writer when he chose to pull it out of his bag of tricks. Off the top of my head I can think of lush descriptions of rooms in two of his books. The Long Goodbye had one of them. I think the other one I'm thinking of is The Big Sleep.
Oh yeah, I did say have a look, by all means. He's a good suggestion. But some people on the forum (in the past, anyway) used to hold him up as THE writer to emulate. I just never could see it. He's got a distinctive style, but it's not everyone's taste. I think his unrelenting 'cleverness' is too obvious and I find it annoying because it gets in the way of the story. It puts a barrier between me and the characters.
A lot of it depends on what you're writing about. Certain things will hold more descriptive language than others. Landscapes are the obvious ones, usually because there are several objects or vibes occurring at once, while common, mundane things or objects won't be interesting no matter how you describe them. So while you might get away with calling a cliff "an alabaster precipice rising from a vestigial warren of brambles," you probably wouldn't want to describe a chair as "a baroque abstraction of ebon curlicues." Sparse language is a bit more utilitarian, but it demands more precise word usage to avoid sounding like Dr. Seuss or Dick and Jane.
I've been participating in the Bi-Weekly Flash Fiction Contests; being limited to 500 words is a great learning experience. I'm forced to look at what i write and say "but could I make this simpler?" Could one money word replace these seven mediocre descriptors? Does this POV offer the greatest insight to what is happening? It hasn't made me less ramble-y in my first draft, but i'm getting better at asking the right questions and recognizing what is relevant. I highly recommend throwing your hat in the ring. Two birds with one stone: step away from your project AND tighten up your narrative (if that's what you're looking to do, anyways).
Not that I want to be seen turning this on me, but honestly, this is good advice. Count yourself lucky. I'm not looking forward to the end of my first draft, as I suspect I'm going to have conjure up somewhere in the region of 40,000+ words of additional material. I'd much rather be in a position where I had to lose 40,000 words.
