“Words have their own firmness,” Susan Sontag reflected in her diary. “Use the right word, not its second cousin,”
Making “original” word choices isn’t even a goal a beginning writer should strive for, unless maybe your writing is purely experimental (i.e. no one will ever actually read it) Even writers known for using unusual vocabulary (Thomas Pynchon, for instance) have a higher purpose in mind than being “original.” “Original” and “good” aren’t synonymous.
Making good word choices has nothing whatsoever to do with how many words you have to choose from or how many possible combinations there are. Words are not random elements at all. Every time you choose a word, you bring along its meaning(s), all the related grammar, its connotations, its likely bedfellows, its history, cultural information, and lots of unspoken assumptions grounded in shared human experience. When you choose a word, you pull on the leaf, but you also pull on the branch. You can also think of this as a chess move. Choosing any word commits you to a course of action, opening up some options, but also closing off others.
Your word choices should be just as strategic and purposeful as the chess moves you make. If they are not, they detract from the quality of your writing, making it ill-focused and hard to understand.
Here is an example of effective word choice from a book I have on hand and a passage I happened to have marked in the book on my shelf.
Thankfully Abigail, who was a high-end restaurant hound and insisted on turning several of the dinners into awkward fivesomes, was in peak disagreeable form. Unable to imagine people gathering for some reason besides listening to her, she prattled about the world of New York theater (by definition an unfair world since she had made no progress in it since her understudy breakthrough); about the “sleazy slimeball” Yale professor with whom she’d had insuperable Creative differences; about some friend of hers named Tammy who’d self-financed a production of Hedda Gablerin which she (Tammy) had brilliantly starred; about hangovers and rent control and disturbing third-party sexual incidents that Ray, refilling and refilling his own wineglass, demanded every prurient detail of. Midway through the final dinner, in SoHo, Patty got so fed up with Abigail’s shanghaiing of the attention that ought to have been lavished on Walter (who had politely attended to every word of Abigail’s) that she flat-out told her sister to shut up and let other people talk. There ensued a badintervalof silent manipulation of tableware. Then Patty, making comical gestures of drawing water from a well, got Walter talking about himself. Which was a mistake, in hindsight, because Walter was passionate about public policy and, not knowing what real politicians are like, believed that a state assemblywoman [Patty’s mother] would be interested in hearing his ideas.
This paragraph isn’t very long, but there is quite a lot we could say about word choice here. We could talk about the moralizing tone created by choices like fivesome, sleazy, and prurient. It’s interesting to see the contrast in register (formality) between the narrator’s account* of Abigail’s character and actions (high-end restaurant hound, prattles, insuperable, ensued, as well as sentence structure and grammar) and the much more colloquial account of Patty’s actions (got fed up, shanghaiied, flat-out told her sister to shut up) There is an interesting cultural contrast between the two women, which vocabulary like New York theater, understudy, creative differences, and rent control help bring to the foreground.
The paragraph narrates a dinnertable family argument in a straightforward and conventional style. Interval marks a clear turning point in the action. But why write interval? Why not just pause? Why not awkward silence?
Interval means more than pause. It means pause in something otherwise known to be continuous. An interval is also structural, planned, expected, typical, or some combination of these. It is non-random, expected pausing, and awkward silence cannot capture this idea very well. These connotations, and the association of interval with theater, the military and even mathematics, allow the author to pack a lot of punch with this one word.
Even if this is the only paragraph in this novel that you’ll ever read, you know,and you will remember that the conflict between the two sisters, Patty and Abigail is lifelong, and that it centers largely upon Abigail’s compulsion toperform onstage and off. You might have decided this from the previous chapter, where Abigail becomes known to you in other scenes. You may have inferred it from the first two sentences, or from the fact that this scene was narrated in a summary way, and not through dialogue. However, there is no need to infer anything with interval. The author has directly communicated the predictability and repetitiousness and the annoying root cause of the argument by using this one word. Interval emphasizes what has previously been narrated, bringing the conflict to a mini-climax that moves the narrative forward. (I particularly liked the abrupt, jerky effect of the register switch in the sentence where Patty takes control of the conversation. The conversation is rolling along and Patty slams the brakes, so to speak.)
When we think about word choices in our own writing, it’s important to focus on the choices that give the most bang for the buck. We don’t achieve that by choosing the rarest word or considering how original or interesting our wording may seem to our reader. We acquire deep vocabulary knowledge by reading, above all, and we apply that knowledge by careful revision and (if we’re lucky) a good editor. :)
Anne Zahra
There are only a limited number of word combinations? Well, I guess that’s true from the point-of-view of a 4,000-year-old, highly literate man. Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by “a limited number of word combinations.” If you’re saying there are only so many ways you can combine the words “duck” and “quacked,” I agree. But you’re saying there are only a few ways you can express an idea, right? That’s false. Think of the endless, unique was poets have described love.)
What most writers do is first figure out what they want to say and then put some elbow grease into finding an evocative way to say it. If I’m trying to describe a really hairy man, I might start by making some lists: brainstorming words and phrases, without censoring myself:
hairy fury shaggy ape-like canine fluffy fury beast scruffy guy has to shampoo his whole body perms his back public hair all over feathered down cave man ape man Dr. Zaius Francis the talking mule Kong …
Then (or earlier) I’ll crack open a thesaurus. Every writer should have one in his arsenal.
eyebrow fiber fur grass haircut hairstyle mane sideburn strand wig wool beard bristle cilium coiffure cowlick cut down eyelash feeler filament fluff fringe lock mop moustache quill ruff shock thatch tress
I’ll also toy around with metaphors: what is a the man’s hair like? an unmowed lawn? a tangle of wires? spaghetti?
And I’ll play with sensuality. What’s it like touching, smelling, tasting (!), hearing, and looking at this man. Would giving him a back rub feel like kneading a yak? If you hugged him, would it feel as if you were being smothered by Cookie Monster?
The goal should be to assault the reader with whatever it is you’re writing about. Find evocative words and phrases that create the literary equivalent of scratch-and-sniff.
Marcus Geduld
Whoa! I’m not sure I can answer this question articulately. I’ll bet you I get caught up in my own words, and start stumbling on the shoelaces of loose sentences.
I do love the mot juste, though. It should be a menu item. ‘I’ll have the mot juste, please. Dressing on the side.’
Since I’ve dedicated my life and my writing to smart aleck-ness (for the most part) I read those authors I like, or who I think are funny. When I read something I think is funny in their books, I read it over and over.
As examples, I’ve read all of Dave Barry’s books, and all of Sue Grafton’s, more than once. Sue Grafton writes the alphabet series of mysteries starring her kick ass private detective, Kinsey Millhone. Kinsey’s also a smart aleck, and very relatable.
Dave Barry’s books are frequently hysterical. When I read a funny passage, I wonder,Why is it funny? Why did I laugh at it? Was it the turn of phrase? The dry delivery, meant to sound serious? The use of things we know, used inappropriately, or even appropriately, but with a twist of lime?
For instance, in the chapter, Man Bites Dog, Mr. Barry opens with the statement, ‘Today, we begin a popular feature wherein we will address the major ethical questions of the day, starting with: Is it okay to eat your dog?
(Bingo! He’s caught our attention with a serious start to a funny question. At least, to Americans it’s funny.)
Answer: No. Not here in America.
He goes on to relate the story of the woman who put her wet poodle in a microwave oven to dry it. He ends the story by telling us the tragedy could have been averted if only the government had put a stern federal message (the word ‘federal’ is funny, and so is the word ‘stern’) on the oven:
WARNING: THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT YOU SHOULD NOT PUT A DOG IN THIS OVEN AND TURN IT ON.
He continues in this vein by saying that the story of the dog in the microwave is an urban myth, as is the story of the teens who were making out in their car, in the country, when an escaped homicidal maniac, with a hook for a hand, tries to get in the car.
The boy starts the car real quick, drives away with a squeal of tires, taking the man’s hook with him, stuck in the car door handle, and runs over Reggie Jackson, who was walking his Doberman because it was choking on an alligator from the New York city sewer system.
(Which is also an urban myth. I hope. Reggie Jackson, on the other hand, is not an urban myth.)
In another chapter, Mr. Barry suggests a solution to the national deficit by proposing that the government raise money by selling national assets we don’t really need: Metric road signs, all presidential libraries, the House of Representatives, North Dakota, etc.
All of this is funny stuff. He hasn’t used any metaphors, big words, similes, or convoluted turns of phrase. On the contrary, it could read like a simple newspaper item.
One of the authors I read when I began writing a memoir, was William Zinsser. He spent a lifetime writing for magazines, and writing creative non-fiction. His book, which I didn’t expect to enjoy as well as a novel, was so good, I read it as if it was a novel.
In his book, he gives writers invaluable advice. None of his advice says to read things just so you’ll be a better writer, but to read things you want to read, and maybe wonder why you like the way the author writes.
Here’s a passage from Sue Grafton’s, W Is For Wasted: ‘There was no way Pete could rouse himself. Who knew dying could take so long? He was bleeding out; heart slowing, belly filling up with blood. Not a bad way to go, he thought. He heard the beating of wings, a nearly inaudible whisper and flutter. He felt quick puffs of wind on his face, feathery grace notes. The birds had come back for him, hoping he had something to offer them, when, in fact, every kindly impulse of his had fled.’
In context, this passage gave me chills; the man has been gut shot, and is lying alone in the park. Even though, up until then, the reader wasn’t particularly enamored of Pete, reading about his death, in prosaic detail, using a few adjectives to describe the birds, as if they might be heavenly agents, made me sad; made me grieve for Pete, and the loss of his affection for the birds he liked to feed.
I knew this would happen; I don’t know where exactly I’m going with this narrative.
I guess I don’t read books in order to improve my writing, unless it’s books like William Zinsser’s. I read books I enjoy, and after I had read Mr. Zinsser’s books, I understood better why I enjoy them.
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When I wrote a poem that included the disastrous line “The sky in Beijing is a mosaic of coal smoke,” Derek was appalled. “Not only is it a terrible cliché,” he said, “but it makes no sense.” He drew tiles on the page in front of us. “This is mosaic!” he told me. “Tiles! They are hard. How can smoke be this?” “You’re right,” I agreed, anxious for the conversation to end. But we spent another half an hour talking about why I had put the line in there at all, whether for the sake of sound (a possibility that made him angry) or because I thought (for some deranged reason) that it was “necessary.” I didn’t know why I’d included it. Derek made it clear that a good poet must know the exact reason for each of her lines, and he had absolute faith in the deliberateness of the writers he admired. A classmate of mine, smart and thoughtful, once asked why Thomas Hardy had used the word “ooze” to describe wind moving through trees. Why not “pour,” or “move,” or any other more natural-seeming choice? Derek rose from his chair and thundered—for the rest of class, forty-five excruciating minutes, against anyone who would dare to question Hardy’s word choice. Derek’s own way with words was at once epic and immediate, physical, literal, abstract, lyrical, guttural. I’ve thought often this week of the profound final lines from “Midsummer, Tobago,” a poem about the passage of time: “Days I have held, days I have lost / days that outgrow, like daughters / my harbouring arms.”
Why do I struggle in writing while being good at reading? Marcus Geduld, Published author, lifelong reader. 6.2k Views Memory is not like a bookshelf where you can see all the books at once and grab whichever one you want. It’s more like a shelf in which books are hidden behind other books, and you can’t see the ones in back until you’ve removed the ones in front of them.
Here’s a cartoon (vastly simplified) version of what happens: let’s say that, usually, when you read the word “steering,” it’s in the context of cars: “John grabbed the steering wheel and turned left.” And car generally comes up in sentences about traveling: “He wanted to go to the store, but there was no parking, so he drove his car two blocks away, parked there, and walked.”
Maybe “steer” would be a great word to use when talking about dating. “He was attracted to both girls, but more and more, he found himself steering towards Alice.”
Now, imagine you hadn’t just read that last sentence. You’re writing about a guy who is attracted to two girls and trying to come up with a word to describe how he seems more into one than the other. There’s nothing in that context about transportation, which is too bad, because that’s your route to the word “steering.”
Dating –>
Transportation –> cars –> steering.
Unless something happens to start you down that second path, you’ll probably never think of “steering,” even though you know what it means.
Which is why writers use tools and techniques like redrafting, brainstorming, list-making, and thesauri. They don’t just hope the right words will pop into their heads, because they know they generally won’t.
Here’s a page from George Orwell’s manuscript for “1984.” Look how hard he labored to find the right words. Professional authors expect to have to do this.
Is ‘strugglingly’ the correct word in this sentence and is the rest ok?
When he entered the car, his whole body was shivering. He took his phone and strugglingly typed “hospitals” into the Yelp application’s search bar. The Google map that appeared indicated New York–Presbyterian Hospital on 68th street was probably where John and Emily were being treated.
Well, it’s grammatically correct, and readers will understand what it’s trying to convey, but (in my opinion), it’s a horrible coinage. “Struggle,” is a strong verb which, when well placed, can evoke sensual imagery: “He struggled until he was out of breath, but the chains held fast.” “Strugglingly” is clumsy. It muddles something sleek, like forcing Venus Williams to wear baggy pants or gluing rusty spikes all over the Washington monument. Just try saying it out loud and you’ll feel its clunk: strug-gal-ling-lee. And it blunts the image, too, because while I can imagine a person struggling, I have a harder time imaging him doing anything strugglingly. This is similar to how I can imagine kissing Michele Pfeifer but struggle* picturing myself interacting with her kissingly. How about this rewrite? “When he entered the car, his whole body was shivering. He took his phone and tried to type ‘hospital,’ struggling with the the Yelp application’s search bar” You seem timid about verbs in general. Don’t be. They’re sexy! Instead of “his whole body was shivering,” how about “his whole body shivered”? And I’m sure you can spruce up “entered the car” and “took out his phone.” Your goal, when writing, should be to help the reader have a visceral experience. How about this? “He yanked open the door of his Prius and squeezed behind the wheel. His whole body shivered. Grabbing his phone, he struggled to type ‘hospital’ into Yelp’s search field.”
What words can be used instead of awesome and cool?
I’m not sure what you mean by “what is the reason?” Are you asking about word origins? “Plunge” comes from the Latin “plumbum,” which means “to plummet.” Plummeting is falling, and, due to gravity, things fall downward.
In English, the literal meaning of “plunge” is “to dive deep down,” and it’s come to be used as a metaphor for rigorously exploring a problem or idea.
“He didn’t just read a couple of books about History; he plunged into the subject, and read every book in the entire library.”
The metaphor conjures up the image of (in this case) History as a sea and the student as a diver, going down to the depths–as opposed to a mildly interested hobbyist, standing on the bank, dipping his toes in.
An idiom is a common phrase that has a generally-understood meaning. You can think of it as a word composed of multiple words. Just as the word “house” evokes a single idea, so does the idiom “caught between a rock and a hard place.” Non-idioms can be pulled pulled apart. For instance, “My cat ate her dinner” isn’t an idiom. “My cat” makes sense on its own. So does “ate her dinner” and “her dinner.” Those are not complete sentences, but they still are intelligible parts of the whole. Whereas with an idiom like “don’t beat around the bush,” you can’t do that. As a whole, the phrase means something similar to “tl;dr,” “Get to the point, already!” or “Stop avoiding the subject.” But “don’t beat” and “the bush” aren’t sub-parts of that idea. You need the entire phrase to express the meaning. Like many idioms, “don’t beat around the bush” is a metaphor, because there’s no actual bush that’s being beaten, but idioms don’t have to be metaphors. They just have to be common-usage expressions that can’t be broken into sub-units without totally losing their meaning. For instance “to make a long story short” isn’t necessarily metaphorical, but it’s still an idiom, for reasons I stated above. Here’s another acid test. A foreigner could say, “My feline devoured his vitals” without being accused of “getting it wrong.” He might sounds a bit stilted or odd, but he hasn’t made an error. But if he says, “beat around the plant” or “to make a long book less long,” there’s a real sense in which he’s flubbed. We may understand what he’s trying to say, but he doesn’t know the correct expression.
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Is it OK to open a dictionary for every word that you don’t understand while reading a novel?
https://www.quora.com/profile/Marcus-Geduld Marcus Geduld, Shakespearean director, computer programmer, teacher, writer, likes dinosaurs. 9.2k Views Is it okay? Well, that depends how much you care about your family. I knew a guy who owned a dictionary, and he insisted on using it, no matter how many times I told him not to. He said, “Come on. Who does it hurt?” What could I do except shake my head sadly? Truth is, he got away with it for a surprisingly long time, but Karma is a cruel mistress, and in the the end it ruined his life. One day, while he was looking up “epicaricacy,” the authorities surrounded his house and demanded he surrender. Even in prison, he was unrepentant. He bribed a guard to smuggle in an OED, got into a fight with his cellmate over the definition of “floxinoxinihilipilification,” and ended up in solitary. His children spent years without a father, his wife took to drink, and his aging mother developed a serious shuffle-board addiction. If I thought there were okay and not-okay things to do when reading fiction, I would immediately quit and never read a novel again. This life is full of things we have to do, like pay taxes and co-exist with Zooey Deschanel. Reading, unless we’re talking about a school or work assignment, is something we (hopefully) do for fun. If novel-reading exhausted me, I would also quit. Why do it if it’s not enjoyable? Life is incredibly short. Spend time doing what you love. That said, it’s rare that misunderstanding a word will make the plot unintelligible. Why not try reading a couple of short stories, without looking up words, and see if you can understand what’s going on? I direct Shakespeare plays, and I always read them through at least once without looking anything up, because I want to experience what the audience will experience to understand what might confuse them. Even though some words puzzle me, I usually understand the main plot points. Most stories contain a lot of redundancy, so it’s clear what’s going on in them, even if you don’t catch every word. Also, what does “looking it up in the dictionary” involve for you? Are you using a physical book for a dictionary? That will seriously slow you down, because you have to flip though pages to find the word you’re looking for. Electronic (online) dictionaries are much faster. Keep a google tab open when you’re reading and type “define:martinet” (without the quotes), assuming you’re looking up the word “martinet.” Or, if you can afford it, buy a Kindle. The’re about $80 new, and they pay for themselves quickly, as e-books are generally cheaper than physical books, assuming you don’t get all your books from the library or as loans from friends. Just clicking on a word brings up its definition, without you having to leave the page you’re on. Or you can use this Chrome plugin, which does the same thing, but in a browser: Google Dictionary (by Google). If you buy ebooks from amazon, you can read them online.
Is it time to give up on the word “whom”?
https://www.quora.com/profile/Marcus-Geduld Marcus Geduld, Published author, lifelong reader. 517 Views Well, the way language generally works is that it’s “time” to give up using a word when people give up using it. It’s generally pointless to order or suggest people quit change usage. They will when they’re ready. But to answer the question, I’ve found “whom” useful in one situation: when someone asks a question like, “Is it important to vote?” I sometimes respond, “Important to whom?” To me, the effect is similar to “Important to who?” “Whom,” with its whiff of old-world and condescension, draws the reader’s attention to the word and acts as a sort of underline, allowing me to create an effect with a word alone that would usually require a word plus typography. It would be cool if all words had variants like that: slightly unusual versions that acted as alternative italics. “When you come to the meeting, please rememememememember to bring a pencil.”
If there are only a limited number of word combinations, and thoughts are best expressed in only a certain number of those combinations, how can I learn to make more original word choices, when it seems like so many necessary phrases have been used already? Profile photo for Marcus Geduld Marcus Geduld , Published author, lifelong reader. Answered Jan 10, 2014 (There are only a limited number of word combinations? Well, I guess that’s true from the point-of-view of a 4,000-year-old, highly literate man. Maybe I misunderstand what you mean by “a limited number of word combinations.” If you’re saying there are only so many ways you can combine the words “duck” and “quacked,” I agree. But you’re saying there are only a few ways you can express an idea, right? That’s false. Think of the endless, unique was poets have described love.)
What most writers do is first figure out what they want to say and then put some elbow grease into finding an evocative way to say it. If I’m trying to describe a really hairy man, I might start by making some lists: brainstorming words and phrases, without censoring myself:
hairy fury shaggy ape-like canine fluffy fury beast scruffy guy has to shampoo his whole body perms his back public hair all over feathered down cave man ape man Dr. Zaius Francis the talking mule Kong …
Then (or earlier) I’ll crack open a thesaurus. Every writer should have one in his arsenal.
eyebrow fiber fur grass haircut hairstyle mane sideburn strand wig wool beard bristle cilium coiffure cowlick cut down eyelash feeler filament fluff fringe lock mop moustache quill ruff shock thatch tress
I’ll also toy around with metaphors: what is a the man’s hair like? an unmowed lawn? a tangle of wires? spaghetti?
And I’ll play with sensuality. What’s it like touching, smelling, tasting (!), hearing, and looking at this man. Would giving him a back rub feel like kneading a yak? If you hugged him, would it feel as if you were being smothered by Cookie Monster?
The goal should be to assault the reader with whatever it is you’re writing about. Find evocative words and phrases that create the literary equivalent of scratch-and-sniff.
Who constructs meaning?: Cat vs fluffy kitten, “goes to the movies every night”
How can one justify the use of word “fuck” 252 times (2 per minute) in the movie “The Departed”? What justifies this profanity? This question previously had details. They are now in a comment.
My memory is that the movie seemed very true-to-life. The characters spoke the way real-life people speak—people who are similar to those characters. Many storytellers (myself included) believe there are two justifications for using specific words in stories:
(An example of false-to-nature is a prime-time TV cop show, in which the characters say “freaking” “effing” and “frigging” instead of fucking.)
Here’s what is, to me, a gorgeous piece of writing from “Deadwood.” Can you hear the poetry?
Hugo: Had you vision as well as sight, you would recognize within me not only a man, but an institution and the future as well.
Steve: Fuck you, fuck the institution, and fuck the future!
Hugo: You cannot fuck the future, sir. The future fucks you.
When it comes to observations, we can rely somewhat on objectivity. Most people would agree that underworld characters do tend to swear a lot. But beauty is, famously, in the eye of the beholder. If I claim something is beautiful and you disagree, we’re both being guided by strong subjective feelings, and neither of us is going to be able to convince the other.
So I will not be able to convince you of my feeling that fuck is one of the most beautiful and versatile words in the English language. It’s so versatile, you can even stick in in the middle of other words, which I think is fan-fucking-tastic!
I am sorry you’re unable to enjoy it.
Here’s one way to do it: write a first draft that thumbs its nose at panache. Just dump your ideas on the page using whatever bland prose leaks out of your pen. Then, as you proofread, underline any word or phrase that bores you.
Example:
It’s so hot these days. At work, I’m sweating through my clothes, and by the time I get home, I’m drenched. I have to turn the air conditioning way up and just sit there in my underwear.
It’s so hot these days. At work, I’m sweating through my clothes, and by the time I get home, I’m drenched. I have to turn the air conditioning way up and just sit there in my underwear.
Keep in mind that good writing is sensual, by which I mean it sparks one or more of the five senses. When I underline, I’m not looking for prose that’s boring or “unoriginal.” I’m looking for anything non-sensual.
“It’s so hot these days” explains that it’s hot, but it doesn’t make the reader feel hot. If I can bake him, my prose will wind up being original and panachy.
A couple of notes: the key isn’t to plop in obscure words or coin “poetic” metaphors, because those also won’t spark the senses. Does this make you feel hot?
It’s so thermogenic these days?
And as for metaphors, a creative-writing teacher once told me about one of her students who wrote, “crystal drops bombed his nose” instead of “it rained on him.” Don’t be that student! “Crystal drops bombed her nose” doesn’t make me feel rained on!
By the way, “I’m drenched” and “in my underwear” escaped underlining because they’re sensual phrases. Or at least I think so. What do you think?
Okay, now it’s time for research and brainstorming. I usually start with the latter. I make lists. I start with the first underlined passage and, on a blank sheet of paper, write some …
“It’s so hot these days.”
hot overheated sweat boiling sidewalk hot steam plants wilting thirsty 103 degrees. miniskirts panting fried chicken dog day afternoon deoderant …
Note: don’t censor yourself! Should I really be thinking of miniskirts? Maybe not. (Don’t tell my wife!) But if you start curtaining your thoughts, you’ll blunt your creativity. Don’t worry: you can always burn your notes, later.
I also crack open …
(or use an online one) and I look up “hot” (and maybe some of the words from my brainstorming session.
baking, blazing, blistering, boiling, broiling, burning, calescent, close, decalescent, febrile, fevered, feverish, feverous, fiery, flaming, heated, humid, igneous, incandescent, like an oven, on fire, ovenlike, parching, piping, recalescent, red, roasting, scalding, scorching, searing, sizzling, smoking, steaming, stuffy, sultry, summery, sweltering, sweltry, thermogenic, torrid, tropic, tropical, very warm, warm …
I search through my brainstorms and research, looking for a sensual way to state my idea. I settle on …
New york City is parched this summer …
That doesn’t mean exactly the same thing as my original sentence. Maybe that’s okay; maybe not. Sometimes, during this stage, new words and phrases nudge my meaning. It’s part of the give and take of prosemanship. If the rewrite isn’t acceptable, I can nudge it back towards its original meaning.
The main point is to be playful. Build lego towers out of words, topple them, rebuild them, put mustaches on them (???) and so on. Always hunt for the sensual.
When you can’t seem to make an idea sensual through straightforward prose…
That’s the main purpose of metaphor. It sensualizes ideas that are flat when phrased literally.
For instance, no matter what literal phrasing I use as a replacement for “I have to turn the air conditioning way up,” I can’t seem to make it sensual. So I play with metaphors. What’s it like to turn up the air conditioning? Is there a way I can exaggerate it or fantasize it?
I cranked the air conditioner up to eleven.
I ran the air conditioner full blast, turing my apartment into the Fortress of Solitude.
I revved up the air conditioner and kept it pumping away until there were icicles hanging from my bookshelves.
I air conditioned my bedroom until it was colder than Anchorage.
I dragged my chair next to the air conditioner, cranked it up, and froze myself into a glacier.
I french kissed my air conditioner.
Etc.
My goal is to be as playful as possible. I’m not answerable to anyone. I’m exploring, and I can always delete dumb attempts.
You don’t need to make every phrase and every sentence into a sensual feast. What’s important is that, in general, the reader’s senses are tickled. So if you have to include some “telling” along with your “showing,” don’t sweat it. Don’t stick a fork in your eye just because you can’t find a way to sensualize a letter to your accountant.
Always try for sensuality, and the more startlingly sensual you are in sentence one, the more you earn the right to be bland in sentences two and three. Then bugger the reader’s senses again in sentence four!
How do you walk the fine line between dumbing down your writing and making your writing understandable for a larger demographic? Marcus Geduld Marcus Geduld, Published author, lifelong reader. 714 Views One of the best ways to grow as a writer – or as pretty much anything – is to pursue excellence within constraints. Since NBC is constraining me to half an hour, how can I write a great episode? Since my article can’t exceed 1,000 words, how can I pack as much information into it as possible? Since my poem must be fourteen blank-verse lines with an ABAB rhyme pattern, except for the last two lines, which should be a rhymed coupled, how can I write the best poem possible?
Using a simple vocabulary is only “dumbing-down” if you choose to see it that way. In fact, a skilled writer can be extraordinarily impressive with simple words, as George Orwell, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Raymond Carver have shown. In fact, one way to get better at writing clear, simple, evocative prose is to study such writers.
In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people – the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans.
– George Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant.”
Now as to the matter of lying. You want to be very careful about lying; otherwise you are nearly sure to get caught. Once caught, you can never again be in the eyes to the good and the pure, what you were before. Many a young person has injured himself permanently through a single clumsy and ill finished lie, the result of carelessness born of incomplete training. Some authorities hold that the young ought not to lie at all. That of course, is putting it rather stronger than necessary; still while I cannot go quite so far as that, I do maintain, and I believe I am right, that the young ought to be temperate in the use of this great art until practice and experience shall give them that confidence, elegance, and precision which alone can make the accomplishment graceful and profitable.
– Mark Twain, “Advice to Youth”
He had sung when he was by himself in the old days and he had sung at night sometimes when he was alone steering on his watch in the smacks or in the turtle boats. He had probably started to talk aloud, when alone, when the boy had left. But he did not remember. When he and the boy fished together they usually spoke only when it was necessary. They talked at night or when they were storm-bound by bad weather. It was considered a virtue not to talk unnecessarily at sea and the old man had always considered it so and respected it. But now he said his thoughts aloud many times since there was no one that they could annoy.
– Ernest Hemingway, “The Old Man and the Sea.”
This blind man was late forties, a heavy-set, balding man with stooped shoulders, as if he carried a great weight there. He wore brown slacks, brown shoes, a light-brown shirt, a tie, a sports coat. Spiffy. He also had this full beard. But he didn’t use a cane and he didn’t wear dark glasses. I’d always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wish he had a pair. At first glance, his eyes looked like anyone else’s eyes. But if you looked close, there was something different about them. Too much white in the iris, for one thing, and the pupils seemed to move around in the sockets without his knowing it or being able to stop it. Creepy. As I stared at his face, I saw the left pupil turn in toward his nose while the other made an effort to keep in one place. But it was only an effort, for that one eye was on the roam without his knowing it or wanting it to be.
– Raymond Carver, “Cathedral”
I always “eat words” when I write. Why is that?
23 March 2019