Oh, those adjectives

     Adjectives cause more problems than they solve. Many beginning writers load their sentences with adjectives as if to prove they know how to write. Often, they prove just the opposite. Look at the following sentence. "The tall, slender man with reddish hair, a big nose, sideburns that were not even and a two-day growth of beard, sat on a green park bench that was splintery and needed painting and laid his small knapsack down next to him." Now lets get rid of the adjectives. "The man sat on a park bench and laid his knapsack down next to him." It's a simple sentence that sets the stage for the next sentence. And isn't that an important purpose of any sentence? I want to know where the man came from, where he is going and what's in the knapsack. The color of his hair is not important; worse, it is irrelevant. The late Martin Yoseloff, an author friend and mentor, used to complain about sentences that had "too much furniture." It was hard for the reader to walk through them.
I leave you with this sentence to ponder. "With long, flowing brown hair, twinkling blue eyes, a nose of perfect proportion, pouting lips and an hour-glass figure, Angela had looks that were beyond description."