The Hidden Danger of Over-Explaining: Why Too Much Clarity Can Actually Confuse Readers
If you try to describe the subject’s clothes, the weather, and the subject’s internal thoughts all before reaching the main verb, the reader may lose track of who is doing what. For instance:
“Walking quickly to the store to buy bread before it closed at 9:00 PM in the rain, the umbrella was lost by John.” By over-explaining the circumstances (the time, the bread, the rain) within one unit, the writer accidentally suggests the umbrella was walking to the store. Clarity is lost because the grammatical “anchor” of the sentence was buried under too much detail.
