Choosing Our Words

The topic for this month’s blog post is about words. How does word choice develop a story’s character? How do you use and select your words?

Wow and double-wow!  Our stories are composed of words, and how do we select among the 25,000 to 35,000 words in the writer’s vocabulary?   

Let’s break this down into describing someone who is angry.

Jack is irked.

Jack is pissed.

Jack is mad as hell.

Jack is batshit.

Jack’s face is crimson and he looks like he’s going to explode.

Jack feels a boiling thermonuclear rage tripped to explode.

Not only does each sentence tell us something about Jack, but it also says something about the author. “Pissed” and “batshit” are current colloquial expressions, not likely to be used by an elderly writer. Also they are “telling” us how Jack feels. Jack feels a “boiling thermonuclear rage” shows us, as does Jack’s face is crimson and he looks like he’s going to explode.” We could write 20 more sentence to indicate Jack is angry, and each one would have a different degree of anger and be in a different voice. 

Just this week, I re-read The Great Gatsby for perhaps the fourth or fifth time, but for the first time as a writer. Fitzgerald’s long, beautiful, literary sentences blew me away, but not everyone in my book club liked them. “Too long, ” and  “Too slow to get going,” were two of the comments.  The moral of this is that not everyone will be thrilled by your words. Words become “voice,” and every character in a story has a voice.  The words a character speaks and thinks betray his or her character. 

How do I select my words? As a former English major who, back in the day, was immersed is the classics of literature, from Homer and Shakespeare to James Joyce and ee cummings, I know a lot of words.  My parents were from different parts of the country and they had their own words and sayings. When we were in a grimy industrial part of town, my mother would exclaim that we were  “in the vinegar works.” I still say that. When my dad had difficulty with a task, he would mutter that  “it’s too wet to plow.”  He also spoke of someone who had gotten rich or had good luck as being “in tall cotton.” I love these old expressions that are still in our language. Expressions from the farm are great for a rural character—they really say a lot about him or her in a few words. So I  try to write dialogue that my character would actually use, keeping in mind that even a character who was a total bore would have some felicities of speech. His speech needn’t be boring. The French have a phrase for using the right word. They call it 

le mot juste. 

At my first writer’s conference, an author (literary) advised us against using words like “ensconced,” because they sound kind of, well, high-falutin. (Another good word). If you’re writing a gritty mystery, the language will be much different than a romance for the Christian market. Some readers will put down a book at the first hint of profanity. Others will put it down if a street cop says, “gosh darn.” There you go. The words have to be right for the characters, the story and the market you’re writing for. Sometimes it’s a high-wire act. Sometimes it’s a crapshoot. As writer’s we choose our words with care. They do a lot of heavy lifting.

The great authors listed below all have something to say about choosing words this week. We all have different ideas. Read on! 

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.blogspot.ca
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Dr. Bob Rich  http://wp.me/p3Xihq-OB
Rachael Kosinski http://rachaelkosinski.weebly.com/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com