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A J Hartley
Let me begin by thanking the Magical Words core—Faith, Misty, David and Catie—for inviting me to be a regular contributor to this excellent site. I’m honored. In that spirit, I thought it appropriate to lay my cards on the table by way of introduction, so here goes:
I’m a word guy.
I love them. All of them. Big words, small words, obscure words, common words, new words, old words, pompous words, understated words, vague words that sweep an impression, precise words that work like single shot target pistols, pin-pointing one thing and nothing else so that you know exactly what they mean. Plain words and purple words. Polite words, witty words, slang words, sophisticated words, holy words, not-before-the-children words. Words used as rapiers and words used as bludgeons, words that paint, words can conjure, words that work on the memory like scent, and words that make you feel right there, down there, in the pit of your stomach, or (to mix my metaphors) where the rubber meets the road…
I could go on, but I’ll spare you.
The point is that though I’m tempted to respond to those why-are-you-a-writer questions with things like story and character, I think I’m in it primarily for the words. I can read almost anything—regardless of genre—if I like what’s happening on a sentence level, if the words feel right. By contrast, I can rarely get through anything no matter how wonderful the story if the prose feels staid or (horrors!) incompetent. When I’m writing myself I like nothing better than dropping into a scene where I have a reasonable sense of what is happening and letting the words out. It’s like releasing birds, and there’s nothing that makes me lose track of time like watching them fly.
Of course, they don’t always come out right. Sometimes they don’t fly so much as plummet–like hellish chickens–or dive bomb each other like hawks, shredding everything I had arranged before, and sometimes they just lie there like Monty Python’s parrot, refusing to so much as move even when I rattle the cage. But when they work, when they align just the way I like them, when they swoop and soar and sing, I would swear that there is nothing more beautiful in the whole of creation.
So I write fast (say, 2500 words a morning) and edit slowly. Most important, I try not to look at what I’ve done till the first draft is finished. Then I wait, give myself a little time to forget, and read it all from the beginning—aloud—so that I can hear the words, feel them in my mouth, test them for how well they evoke the scene, the mood, the characters. Then I start to nudge them and clip them, move them and shake them till all my little birds are fleet and lovely and sweet voiced… To me, at least.
So much for metaphor.
But here’s the thing. Writers talk about structure and pace, about world building and point of view, but I don’t know that we talk enough about words. I don’t know that we always recognize how important they are to the success of a story, as if a good story will cover for lousy prose. High concept narratives are all very well, but for me—old traditionalist that I am—quality begins at the sentence level.
And underneath this concern is a larger one (no less real for its overtones of paranoia), one all parents and educators already know: our vocabularies are shrinking. Mass media shoots low, particularly in terms of word choice, terrified of saying anything someone might miss, and the culture seems to drive steadily more towards the visual and impressionistic. Have you listened to the standards of political discourse in our country of late? It’s shocking. And it’s not just politics. I recently stumbled upon a 1963 Time Magazine review of a Philip Larkin poetry collection and was amazed by the complexity and sophistication of its writing. Where is that now? Where did it go and how can we get it back?
Because the problem is ultimately not one of being clever with language; it’s about thought. If you’ll forgive the second hand Wittgenstein, without the words you can’t—broadly speaking—have the thoughts. Images can convey ideas, of course, as can music, but there is no substitute for language when it comes to spelling out complex issues, emotions and concepts. When my students tell me they understand something but can’t put it into words, it generally becomes clear that in fact they don’t really understand it at all. They get an impression of it—“the gist”—but they miss the details (which often means that their sense of “the gist” is wrong) because they don’t truly understand the sentences.
And yes, I’m aware that people have bemoaning the demise of written and spoken English since the culture has been old enough to speak and write. But as writers I think that, where words are concerned, we need to practice what a certain Hogwarts teacher would call Constant Vigilance. So what do we do? I’m not suggesting anything as inorganic as studying the dictionary (word-of-the-day toilet paper anyone?), though reading good, challenging stuff can’t hurt. It’s not about immersing ourselves in language we don’t understand—the reading-as-medicine approach: it’s about finding writers who really know how to use those glorious words and trying to raise our own work to the same level. It’s about striving for a heightened realm of verbal awareness, a state of mind where we take note of words and how they work, and I don’t just mean the ones we don’t know. I mean being deliberate about going back to the words themselves when we read (or hear) something good: a paragraph or a snatch of dialogue, perhaps. Why did it work well? What is it about the words that made them hit home so precisely? If we can raise our conscious awareness of what we recognize as good writing in others, I’m pretty sure we get better at using those same tools in our own work. As Stephen King says, the first word you think of is usually the best choice, but sometimes there’s a better fit, a word which will be that bit more precise, more evocative, a word that will elevate the sentence. Get enough of those and the whole book moves up a level.
Our use of language is a muscle which needs flexing or it will atrophy. We need to be exposed to a rich vocabulary and we need to continually develop our own, not so that we will look smart or sophisticated but because as writers these are the nuts and bolts of our craft. They are our tools and they are all magical.
…and sometimes they just lie there like Monty Python’s parrot, refusing to so much as move even when I rattle the cage.
But…they’re pining for the fjords!
*grin*
Welcome to the party, AJ!
It’s odd that we don’t talk about words more. After all, words (after letters) are the foundation of the sentences that make up our stories. They are the crucial element. Without them, we’d have blank pages! I do think one reason many authors don’t discuss this aspect of writing is that words can be intensely personal — at least to some writers.
Great post. Way to put the pressure on me.
AJ, I love this! Yes, it’s the words. And I adore the way you just said that. I quite often turn off American news for the BBC just so I can hear words a notch or five above the local news. I sit and listen to older people talk, people who remember what it was like to speak in full sentences, with word choice that places proper meaning in every comment and rejoinder. What a lovely and wonderful and poetic thing proper language is. I remember the first time I read Anne Rice and the poetry of her words and language swept me away. I aspired to that richness and power for my own writing. And for some projects (and some characters) I still do, though I admit that I get sloppy when a main character is too urban and modern. Sad but true. Thank you for reminding me of the joy of language. What A lovely thing to read first in the morning.
Thanks guys! It’s great to be able to ruminate about things like this with like-minded people. And yes, Misty, the only reason that parrot was sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been nailed there… And if there’s anyone out there who doesn’t know what we’re talking about–[is that possible?]–type “dead parrot sketch” into Youtube
Come to think of it, part of what I love about Python is the word choice, the obvious intellectual labor that went into getting the wording just right even when the content was just plain silly. Quality workmanship.
AJ,
I could not agree with you more. I have always loved words. I love stories that use words I have not yet been introduced to. I love learning and sharing this information to my every indulging family. Thank you for rekindling my love of language.
Jen
The idea that I might in some small way rekindle anyone’s love of language is a real honor. Thanks, Jen.
Ah, words… I agree with AJ absolutely. Good writing makes me want to read it aloud. When I’m reading something really well written I will find myself reading aloud without consciously deciding to do so, just for teh pleasure of feeling the words in my mouth and hearing them with my ears, not just my mind.
I’ve been rereading PG Wodehouse a lot lately and he does all sorts of things that violate rules of good writing. He uses adverbs liberally, has huge chunks of dialogue with no beats, etc. But his sentences are so perfectly crafted, the pitch so perfect that all that works for his story, not against it. Wodehouse deserves to be read aloud. (Wodehouse wrote the Jeeves and Wooster stories if anyone doesn’t recognize the name. His work still makes me laugh so hard my stomach hurts.)
Great to see you here, AJ, and what a wonderful way to begin your time as a MW regular. Terrific post. I find myself responding to something in Faith’s comment about the urban and modern characters evoking sloppy prose in her writing. I’ve read her urban fantasy and I couldn’t disagree more. Her words fit perfectly with what she’s writing. Stop me, AJ, if I’m wrong, but I think that part of this post is a recognition that different styles of prose — different approaches to word choice, if you will — are appropriate to different styles of writing. Reading Dickens, and steeping oneself in his use of language and image, is marvelous. But if Dashiell Hammett tried to write the same way, it just wouldn’t work. There can be no denying though that Hammett used words brilliantly. It’s not necessarily about using a certain kind of prose. That’s part of what makes AJ’s opening graph so perfect for this post. There is a place for all kinds of words in good writing. Words make the book; they enable everything else — character, narrative, worldbuilding (if there is any). But more fundamentally, they set the tone and establish the mood. We shouldn’t all write like Hammet or Dickens, or like Guy Kay or George R.R. Martin. We should take care with our words, use them lovingly; we shouldn’t be afraid to reach for the uncommon turn of phrase. But we also need to fit them to the larger project.
Thanks for a thought-provoking post, AJ. And again, welcome.
To David,
absolutely, yes. I don’t want to suggest that there’s one kind of writing that everyone should aspire to regardless of what they’re trying to write. Different settings, different genres, different characters all change the parameters for what constitutes the best, most fitting word choice. I was re-reading Zadie Smith’s White Teeth recently and just love the way she evokes a particular set of people through dialogue. It’s snappy, witty, ungrammatical, riddled with slang and absolutely spot on. They aren’t the kinds of sentences you would ever present as good English in a classroom, but they are perfectly evocative of the people who speak them. The good words are the ones that fit the tone, genre and voice of what you’re trying to do in the particular moment. And thanks for the welcome, David.
To Sarah, I’m delighted to hear you read Wodehouse. He’s so English and bound to a kind of Edwardian idyl that I fear he’s dropping off the radar a bit, which would be so sad. You’re right about his sentences; they are a real joy, and they are what keep you reading. I love the fact that he basically tells the same story over and over but it doesn’t matter because he does it so well on a sentence level. Anyone who wants to write humor and learn how to use a light, whimsical touch should read him. Thanks for bringing him up.
It’s like releasing birds, and there’s nothing that makes me lose track of time like watching them fly.
This is why I read– to fall into the story and fly with it.
Thank you for the brilliant post!
Thanks Beatriz. I agree, when the words take off the way they should, they take the reader with them. That’s my experience as a reader anyway. The trick is then to reproduce the effect in your own writing
AJ, a fitting post given the name of the site. I started listening to my words to spot the missing ones, but I discovered a use that you mentioned, hearing how they sound.
I’ve noticed that when I let a fraction of my inner poet out, my words take on a different shape. It’s almost as though the draft is more complete, the block of stone arrives partially chiseled, or the symphony almost written. When I ignore the inner poet, my words come out stilted and dry, evoking less emotion, and requiring greater revision. However too much poet makes them flowery and detract from the story.
Welcome to the team. Great post.
NGD
Dave (or NGD, if you prefer), I agree completely. “Poet” was the word ghosting the whole post, and I think you put your finger on the balance issue nicely. Accessing the poet in you allows you to find that extra something, more emotion, perhaps, or some other richer resonance. Overplay it, however, and you look self-indulgent, over written. Where we draw that line is, of course, highly subjective and becomes a matter of personal style. That’s where it gets tough, where you have to share your material with people whose opinions you respect and let them help you determine how much is enough/too much.
Thanks for the comment. Shades of Michaeangelo and Mozart in your images. Nice
AJH
This is a very interesting site. Stuart, I’m surprised you never mentioned it at a con. Thanks for posting the link on your site AJ. I had just finished What Time Devours at about 2am Charlotte time and had wondered over to your site to see what was up. Sorry to hear your book was delayed AJ, maybe they will release it in time for Dragoncon.
I enjoyed your word post. Hubby’s favorite shirt says “Warning: I have a vocabulary in excess of 75,000 words and I am not afraid to use it!”. This should give you an idea of how we feel about the use of words.
I agree with Faith, the BBC America news is much better than any on the other channels. Gerald (writer and grad student hubby) has quite a few not nice words about some of those “newscasts”.
Glad you enjoyed the site, Angela. Hope you liked WTD too! And yes, I’ve seen your husband wearing that shirt!
Angela — the reason I never mentioned this site was that I discovered it after the last con at which I saw you. Thus, I couldn’t mention it. However, feel free to consider it now mentioned.