Last updated on August 15, 2006

Word Power!

by Linda O. Johnston

Find... or discover?

Watch... or observe?

Love... or adore?

     In each line above, the words mean essentially the same thing... don’t they?  But there are nuances of distinctions between them--and those nuances matter!  Choosing the right word for your story, or that particular spot in it, can make a huge difference in what you’re saying--and how it’s perceived by a reader.

      How?  Well... consider this quotation from Mark Twain:

“The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.”

Compare that quote with this one:

“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet...”

So says the Bard, William Shakespeare, in Romeo and Juliet.

He may be right, but if you call that rose by its technical name, a Rosa ‘Europeana’, for example, instead of a bright red posy or an ugly scarlet symbol with thorns, it’s going to cause a big variation in your writing and how your readers perceive it. 

Imagine a character who uses the scientific name for a flower.  Is he a horticulturalist?  A florist?  A poseur whose pretentiousness annoys your protagonist?

How does he differ from the guy who calls the same flower a posy?  Is that character a hick?  An old-fashioned fellow?  Someone who’s teasing your flora-adoring protagonist?

And then there’s the female who scornfully calls the roses she receives ugly scarlet symbols with thorns.  How will she be perceived?

Words don’t only help to establish character; they additionally help to distinguish between genres--and can sometimes cause anachronisms.  A minor character can’t call a male protagonist a “guy” in a historical saga taking place in the Middle Ages.  No, he would be a man, or a gentleman, or perhaps a knight or a knave.  The term “guy” didn’t originate until after the first Guy Fawkes Day, and even then its connotation has changed a lot since the seventeenth century.

Nor can you generally call a contemporary man in the U.S. a “chap” unless the speaker is from the United Kingdom.  And the only modern women who are dames are British peers.  But if a female is called a “dame” in your story in another time period, then the reader would guess it’s the 1940s or ‘50s, when guys sometimes referred to their counterparts as “dolls” or “dames.”

Then there’s the sensuality of your story.  Word choice can help to establish its genre there, too.  If you use lots of euphemisms and allusions to sexual acts or body parts, your novel may be considered sweet or at least moderately sexy without being extremely steamy.  In erotica, on the other hand (or other extremity), you can use more graphic appellations and do just fine.

Even nuances of the same word have importance at times.  For example, did you know that there is a major difference between the use of the word “and” and the symbol “&” in screen credits for feature films?  If you see that the writers were Kendra Ballantyne & Linda O. Johnston, then Kendra and Linda were co-writers of essentially equal importance, and their names could have appeared in either order. 

If the writers are, however, Kendra Ballantyne and Linda O. Johnston, that means that Kendra, listed first, did the bulk of the writing, with Linda’s assistance.

Word choice is also important to the voice you use in your writing style.  This article is in an upbeat style, and except as illustrations, I’ve used fairly light terminology.  If I were writing a dark and heavy romantic suspense story, though, or if this article were somber and serious, I’d be using words to fit the mood. 

As an example, perhaps my point of view in this commentary would have been better demonstrated had I ensured that each word was educational, instructive and erudite.  I therefore would have selected more words such as “therefore.”  I would express to you how important--no, urgent--it is for you to consider each term before you type it into your manuscript. 

Okay, have I scared you into thinking that your writing should be bogged down and snail-paced because you must ponder every word before you put it down?  No way!  In fact, sometimes the best writing comes from stream of consciousness.  Let your subconscious be your guide--especially if you get stuck for the right word.

     Early in my writing career, I came across the book Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Lusser Rico.  She advocates finding the right word or phrase by what she calls “clustering”--a technique that involves jotting down an initial word or phrase as a nucleus, circling it, then brainstorming by putting down every other word or phrase it brings to mind, circling them and drawing lines to your nucleus.  You can then choose which one really contains the exact meaning you’re after.  A similar technique is used on the online Visual Thesaurus at VisualThesaurus.com formerly subscribed to by LARA, only there you are given possible answers rather than allowing your brain to work at them. 

Although I don’t actively cluster these days, I gladly allow my subconscious to suggest alternatives.  Do I get bogged down looking for the exact right word?  Occasionally, but mostly I put down the general idea in brackets, continue on to avoid losing my train of thought, then return to consider the perfect choice when I’m editing that day’s material.  By then, my subconscious may have figured it out.  If not, I’ll often refer to a thesaurus, either on-line or tangible, for further ideas.

     So, let me end this article with what I consider to be the perfect word to describe what you’re after by choosing the perfect word:  distinctiveness.  Your word choice creates your characters and voice in the genre you selected--and makes your writing distinctively yours!

My thanks to Linda Palmer, author of the Daytime Mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime, for some of the illustrations in this article!

     This article first appeared in the LARA Confidential, newsletter of the Los Angeles Romance Authors, in February 2006.