It seems to me that modern writing, in fiction and non-fiction, is not very descriptive. More like Ernest Hemingway and less like Charles Dickens. True, Dickens' styles may have been overblown and long winded, and Hemingway crisp, but to write in newspaper prose deprives readers of one of the chief pleasures of good reading: Beautiful language.
Writers are often told to expand their vocabulary, only to be warned against using many adjectives and adverbs. This advice is sound in itself, and prevents, long winded adverbial and adjectival descriptions which add nothing worthwhile to a description and weigh down prose, confusing the reader. But too rigid an adherence to this maxim, and newspaper prose in abundance streams from the keyboards of aspiring writers.
Perhaps this maxim, modified, can be reconciled with the expansion of vocabulary. Perhaps what should be emphasized is the acquisition of vivid nouns and verbs, instead of a general "expand your vocabulary" advice. Then, combined together with a moderate usage of pertinent adverbs and adjectives, a powerful, descriptive writing style, filled with beauty, can emerge.
Language is meant to describe things so accurately that one can see what the author is trying to convey. It should inspire awe, invoke the admiration of beauty, teach truths to the ignorant, and admonish the heedless. But how can this be done well with bare-minimum prose?
As a closing statement, I shall compare Jane Austin's classic opening to Pride and Prejudice with my "newspaper prose" rendition:
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
"All know that a wealthy young bachelor needs a wife."
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