How to be 'well written'
Posted by Mathew Abonyi Mon, 06 Jun 2005 18:58:00 GMT
The craft of writing well doesn’t depend on how large a vocabulary or grammatical knowledge you have, but how well you can use words in their right context. The common mistake I make is that a context seems to casts a shadow, suggesting a perfect single word where I use many or none at all. I seek something translucent and lucid, yet it always looks vaguely foggy.
First of all, I think having a wide vocabulary but with a limited range of right contexts makes me believe, perhaps wrongly, that every context could use better words. The best words are the ones you can use in the right context. There is nothing wrong with experimentation in moderation, since a reader or editor can always tell you you’re shit. However, you shouldn’t try to change the context of a sentence or paragraph to use a particular word, especially ones you don’t understand as well. Trying to make ‘penumbra’ dictate the direction of the writing is about as absurd as it gets. I’d tentatively suggest that I have this way of thinking because of a misconception that small words are uneducated, which is obviously nonsense.
Secondly, plopping a rare or uncommon word in the right immediate context, but which may not be right in the long-term context (a sentence vs a paragraph, for example), can land you in a lot of trouble. It takes time to track down the offending word or words, when it would have been much less egotistical and troublesome to just use whatever right word came to mind at the time. Uncommon and rare words should be used as uncommonly or rarely as they are to your vocabulary. It’s all about proportions. If your writing is populated with loads of words you just learnt from the dictionary or some other novel, you have distorted the ‘natural’ vocabulary of the book. A reader will immediately sense your self-conscious, bloated verbiage, so don’t think you can play them for a fool. Some writers use more complicated verbiage, but, if they are good, they use the more complex or specific words in the right proportions to the rest of their text. No matter what, words like ‘try’, ‘see’, ‘think’, ‘smile’, ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘or’ and others are going to be much more used that anything else.
So, the key to good writing is not mastering a dictionary, a thesaurus or a style, but to have a familiarity with words and their contexts, beginning with the most common and moving to the uncommon and rare. If a rarer word has you believe you’re going to appear educated to the reader, you’re probably using it in the wrong context. Whether big or small, complex or simple, rare or common, words come easily when they are in the right context. If it is forced, it isn’t right.
That’s why there’s nothing called writer’s block—only truly idiotic people are at a loss for words in a familiar context. If you’re stuck, you’re probably trying to show off.
