Literary Lights

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Literary Lights

Priscilla Fagan

Words, words, words.

Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts. Robert Fulghum

As writers we use words to show and tell scenes, emotion, senses. Our goal is to make our readers cry or laugh, smile, frown, love, hate. Our words, put in proper form, sequence and rhythm, will hopefully sell our novel, poem, essays, short stories.

Words as the writer's tool are wonderful, glorious, sublime. Words used without thought can be hurtful even though the writer may not have that intent. Words are to be taken seriously. I try to take seriously acts of language. Words set things in motion. I've seen them doing it. Words set up atmospheres, electrical fields, charges. I've felt them doing it. Words conjure. I try not to be careless about what I utter, write, sing. I'm careful about what I give voice to. Toni Cade Bambara

A technique writers use or should use, is to read out loud. As William Sloane says, Exercise your words. Try them out in new relationships. Choose your words with careful consideration. Words have basic inalienable meanings, departure from which is either conscious metaphor or inexcusable vulgarity. Evelyn Waugh

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Mark Twain. Stick with your writer's instincts. If it doesn't feel right then it isn't right. Anthony Burgess reminds us, People don't like using dictionaries when they're reading mere novels. Okay, a little harsh but I tend to believe it. Simplify, simplify, simplify is my motto more often than not.

Some rules from H.W. Fowler, Anyone who wishes to become a good writer should endeavor, before he allows himself to be tempted by the more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid.

This general principle may be translated into practical rules in the domain of vocabulary as follows:
Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched.
Prefer the concrete word to the abstract.
Prefer the single word to the circumlocution.
Prefer the simple word to the long.
Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance. And I'm sure you all know what circumlocution is, but then the dictionary is available.

However, if you don't like what H.W. Fowler has to say perhaps Nathaniel Hawthorne will be easier to swallow: Words-so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them!

Remaining optimistic as we head into fall, I'll see you again in October . . . Priscilla