Notes from the Judge: The Showoff

I am a judge in a novel contest, and I hope this series will provide some insight on the common flaws that appear in the entries.

Today's entry featured an author who had a high vocabulary and was intent on showing it off. In a single sentence, he used "flexion," "incurvate," "turgidity," and "torsioned." A good twenty-dollar word works well in the service of a more precise description. But it's like a good spice, best when used in moderation. Thesaurus overload makes your prose too thick, ruins the rhythm of sentences and distracts the reader from the story. The emphasis should be on communicating, not showing off.