Kindness is an Abstract Noun

Kindness is an Abstract Noun

       they confuse your reader and take you down a circuitous path of too many words to describe rather than show

stick with a verb rather than string your reader onto a path of interpretation and anarchy

and please don’t engage in “nominalization” where you take a good hard working verb and turn it into an abstract noun

head down the road of vivid alive concrete verbs and leave the abstract words by the wayside

use sparingly—be aware of overuse

don’t be fooled into thinking that abstract nouns dwell in the land of clarity 

find the perfect verb but ignore those other meaning sappers— words that end in “ly”—

do you want to go weak or strong— concrete or abstract— rant about equality and hunger,— all abstract notions or write about the school that educates both Israeli and Palestinian children, or the 40 million people in the United States  who don’t have enough to eat, or or or...

         Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean  More people died don’t say Mortality rose.     —- C.S. Lewis