Cutting out adverbs and descriptions as if they were weeds is hardly the secret to good writing.
- Cut out unimportant descriptions. The more it's important, the more description it can have. Right now too much text is devoted to the history of this guy loosing his eye. Unless it's the main antagonist in the game, it has to go.
It's an indirect introduction of a creature you'd run into later.
“What’s the deal?” asks Chance, his righteous indignation more than slightly overplayed.
If we drop the flavor and go with he said, she said, might as well drop it too as it adds absolutely nothing in its barebone form. His line can be said in fifty different ways, the part that you removed tells you how he said it.
* * *
'Now don't you be offended at what I'm a going to say,'
observed Mrs. Mann, with captivating sweetness. 'You've had a long walk, you know, or I wouldn't mention it. Now, will you take a little drop of somethink, Mr. Bumble?'
'Not a drop. Nor a drop,'
said Mr. Bumble, waving his right hand in a dignified, but placid manner.
'I think you will,'
said Mrs. Mann, who had noticed the tone of the refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it. 'Just a leetle drop, with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.'
Mr. Bumble coughed.
'Now, just a leetle drop,'
said Mrs. Mann persuasively.
'What is it?'
inquired the beadle.
'Why, it's what I'm obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants' Daffy, when they ain't well, Mr. Bumble,'
replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass. 'It's gin. I'll not deceive you, Mr. B. It's gin.'
'Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs. Mann?'
inquired Bumble, following with this eyes the interesting process of mixing.
'Ah, bless 'em, that I do, dear as it is,' replied the nurse. 'I couldn't see 'em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.'
'No';
said Mr. Bumble approvingly; 'no, you could not. You are a humane woman, Mrs. Mann.'
* * *
The bolded parts do a great job bringing this scene to life and going far beyond of a mere transcript of what was said.
“What can I get you?” The bartender has spotted you looking over the assortment of unlabeled, plastic gallon jugs, each with its own unappealing liquid in some shade of brown. “We got Gutwarmer, Rat Poison, High Voltage, Firewater, and Absolution. Special on the Rat Poison right now, every third round is free for as long as you're able to drink it.”
What he says absolutely sets the mood and lets my imagination take over, nothing else here is necessary.
Is the booze in bottles, jars, jugs? Glass, metal, plastic? Is it clear as water (like moonshine), brown, yellow?
