Your Love of the Language

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

Okay guys. When you write, do you love the words?

The sounds they make on your tongue, against the roof of your mouth, in the caverns of your mind and across the plains of the page?

Does it thrill you to come up with new combinations of sounds, new ways to express something--something you may have never expressed before?

[Haphazard]

No, it doesn't.

[Danger Jane]

Yes, definitely.

[Shady Lane]

Absofrickinlutely.

[Rolling Thunder]

No. Once the rewriting and editing is done (for the third or fourth time) I'm pretty tired of them.

[Sage]

Sorry, chica. I love the images in my head, my characters, and their dialogue, but language in general does not excite me.

[Aslera]

Language creates images. But sometimes, I love the way something feels. The physical sensation the words make. I like reading them aloud just to see if they create the same sensation they did when I wrote them. I'm rather narcissistic.

[Maprilynne]

I don't adore every sentence I write or anything,but I really do get excited about certain phrases, that perfect comeback, the precise break in the paragraph, etc.

[Nakhlasmoke]

I love words. Lingual doodles and sound sketches.

[Esopha]

I love characters.

I think it shows in my writing.

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

Yes, Sophie, it does. Your characters are fantastic! I love characters too. :)

I just also love words, and wondered how many others did too. Sometimes I gotta really edit out the ridiculousness...it tends to get that way, when you love words as much as I do!

[Danger Jane]

I love characters, too. But it's different. I just love them both, words and characters.

[Hedgetrimmer]

Yeah, I love the sound of language. To me, the perfect string of words is similar to a bar of notes, the former rising to a level of musicality all its own. The downfall to this, however, is that falling in love with the way something is said sometimes detracts from what is actually said. It is a pitfall that must be tip-toed carefully.

Still, the art of storytelling has origins in the spoken word, which depended very much on the sound of the actual words, as there was nothing to read or re-read, and certainly no pictures of augmentation.

I think any serious writer who dismisses the importance of the use and maniuplation of language places himself at a disadvantage to the writer who embraces it. With so many visual mediums in our everyday lives, not to mention so much of the spoken word accompanying those mediums being cookie-cutter speech, prose that sings will definitely strike a cord with readers.

[Stew21]

yes. not only do I love character, story, etc, I love words. Poetry satisfies a great deal of that. A well crafted sentence does wonders for me. A good metaphore is thrilling.
I've written whole poems just because I wanted to use a particular word. (one time the word i wanted to use was "vellum" - just because I liked the sound.)
Rewrites and edits - not so much. They become tedious. I can't tell if they are good anymore.
But a good turn of phrase is not only something I strive for, it's something I respect, admire, and find attractive in others, too. My attraction to a person (personality wise) is directly proportionate to how effectively they use words.

[Haphazard]

I think any serious writer who dismisses the importance of the use and maniuplation of language places himself at a disadvantage to the writer who embraces it. With so many visual mediums in our everyday lives, not to mention so much of the spoken word accompanying those mediums being cookie-cutter speech, prose that sings will definitely strike a cord with readers.

But eloquence and precision don't require a love of words. The only prose that sings to me is off-kilter and any prose that sings in tune I have an awful tendency not to like.

I don't love words, I hate them. They get in the way of the story. Words are small units and stories are the big picture. It's like not being able to see the forest for the trees.

My opinion, anyway.

[bethany]

I love the plot, the story more than I love the words. But plot isn't what I'm best at, I'm continually getting all snarled up in knots and bits of excessive crap happening in my stories. I'm pretty good sometimes with the images. The words themselves, I don't know. There are moments. . . .

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

But eloquence and precision don't require a love of words. The only prose that sings to me is off-kilter and any prose that sings in tune I have an awful tendency not to like.

I don't love words, I hate them. They get in the way of the story. Words are small units and stories are the big picture. It's like not being able to see the forest for the trees.

My opinion, anyway.

That's really interesting and I do not disagree with you in any way. This thread is about opinion, and I totally respect that.

What I love about words is not only the sounds they make, but the meanings attached to them and how tenuous those meanings can be.

My previous novel was all about sound, and being ridiculous in the combinations I managed to create. Thankfully my main character accommodated that love of mine, and since it was told in first person from his point of view, I could get away with it. But my current novel, Julian, is different. He's more reserved. He states things as facts, plainly, and there is no room for saying more than what he means.

But what does he mean?

That's the thing. In this novel I've been using words differently, somehow bending their meanings, to reflect his twisted view of reality. Julian says something, and because is was him who said it--and reflected in every other word making up the manuscript--it becomes true.

Virginia Woolf said that words have echoes of meanings...does that mean they reflect off of everything around them, and everything around them contributes to their meanings? She said that words do not live in dictionaries, they live in the mind. They are always changing.

My goal (and I have just realized this today) is to change the meaning of words with my writing, so that they become uniquely mine. Not...make an apple an orange within the world of my story, but to USE words so that they bend a little, their light glances off other words, and the entire reflection of the words within my story makes my reader think differently about things.

I like words, I like how they fit in my mind and mouth. I'm happy to be a writer and learn how to properly utilize them. :)

[reenkam]

I don't adore every sentence I write or anything,but I really do get excited about certain phrases, that perfect comeback, the precise break in the paragraph, etc.

This is exactly how I feel.

[Haphazard]

But my current novel, Julian, is different. He's more reserved. He states things as facts, plainly, and there is no room for saying more than what he means.

But what does he mean?

That's the thing. In this novel I've been using words differently, somehow bending their meanings, to reflect his twisted view of reality. Julian says something, and because is was him who said it--and reflected in every other word making up the manuscript--it becomes true.

But that sounds to me more like tone than words.

He's saying things, and it's more important that you have discretion on what he doesn't say than what he does say. Tone's created by not the proper stream of words but by eliminating things that don't fit the tone. The absence of words, if you like.

When it comes to this, it's more important that instead of using words that work is to keep from using words and phrases and thoughts that are so jarring they detract from the tone. If that makes any sense.

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

But that sounds to me more like tone than words.

He's saying things, and it's more important that you have discretion on what he doesn't say than what he does say. Tone's created by not the proper stream of words but by eliminating things that don't fit the tone. The absence of words, if you like.

When it comes to this, it's more important that instead of using words that work is to keep from using words and phrases and thoughts that are so jarring they detract from the tone. If that makes any sense.

Yea, it does, and maybe I'm just blurring lines here. In that instance it is tone primarily that I'm talking about...hehe.

Well maybe that's what I'm trying to get at. I don't want the words to be isolated parts of the story...I want it to be a single living organism. And a word might mean something different outside of my story, but nestled within the womb of all the other words...something else.

Maybe I'm being far too...bleh. What I'm saying is that every word is essential, and while being little blocks that make up a story, they're also THE story. Stories are made up of words. I want to use all the tools in my arsenal.

[Danger Jane]

I could never, never separate the words from everything else. I can see the forest for sure, but I can't neglect the trees. Because the minute qualities of the trees are what make the forest, aren't they? If there are a lot of deformed, diseased trees...the forest looks a certain way, without getting into the types of trees they are. That is the definitions of the words--the type of tree, whether it is a pine or a maple. But it is the qualities of those trees that define the forest, at least as much as the types.

What Virginia Woolf also said in the same speech/interview that jordan's talking about is that words do not exist alone--they exist in sentences, in paragraphs, as parts of a greater whole rather than as isolated organisms. A sentence, a paragraph, a novel or an essay--it is a massive symbiotic relationship. Not a bunch of fragments pieced together. For me, words flow into each other--the sounds, the meaning, everything. The way they work together is a part of the story itself, for me.

I think Jordan and I are talking about the same thing here. It's not about throwing together nice-sounding sentences with pretty sounds--it's about choosing words that affect and alter each others' meanings, and they work towards the character and they work towards the tone. And if you were to read it out loud to someone who didn't speak English, it would still create that same effect, that same tone. So that the sounds, the words at their most basic, are supporting tone, they are supporting character, they are supporting story--they are a built-in soundtrack, they cue readers to emotions without the readers ever realizing it.

[Haphazard]

I'm only expressing thoughts when I write, and if I'm writing, words are the only way to do it. Words, or lack of them. And a lot of things get lost in translation, or implied where there shouldn't be anything, and therefore I hate them. They only get in the way.

And that's true for any medium. The medium's always your enemy.

[Danger Jane]

You can look at it that way, and write clinically and objectively--which is a totally valid approach, and one I think is very cool--or you can use the flaw of translation to your benefit. I think that's what I'm doing.

It's like music. Every musician discovers somewhere along the line that his body limits him, technically. And a truly great musician finds a way to use his flaws to his advantage.

Take Maria Callas. Some people call her La Divina, the most incredible soprano ever born. Some people hate her. She didn't have a typical voice, and she couldn't sing the same songs in the same way as her rivals. But instead of quitting, or whatever, she developed her own style around her flaws, and made herself great.

This is how I approach writing. Some people won't get what I'm saying. But in some, I will stir deep emotion, and I'm planning on doing it well enough that they don't forget it anytime soon. You can't be great without people shitting on your work.

Your approach is different, and it's interesting to me. Trust me, I'm not trying to convince you of something. I'm posting still here because your concept of writing is so different from mine, and it's interesting to me.

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

What Virginia Woolf also said in the same speech/interview that jordan's talking about is that words do not exist alone--they exist in sentences, in paragraphs, as parts of a greater whole rather than as isolated organisms. A sentence, a paragraph, a novel or an essay--it is a massive symbiotic relationship. Not a bunch of fragments pieced together. For me, words flow into each other--the sounds, the meaning, everything. The way they work together is a part of the story itself, for me.

I think Jordan and I are talking about the same thing here.

Yeah that. :o If I wasn't currently braindead and there wasn't an infection raging within me...that's what I would have said.

Thanks Nancy. Way to be coherent!


I suppose I look at the medium and its strengths and flaws, and try to figure out how to tame them, how to use them to my advantage. When I write comics, it's all counterpoint and contrast. What are the pictures conveying, what are the words conveying, how can I wring maximum impact out of them?

With prose, it's all a big block of text. I started out long ago writing just to get the story down, but then I realized--when what I saw in my head did not match what I saw in the page--I needed to rethink my approach. It's all about the translation for me, finding a way to convey the colors and emotions and heart-aches in my head to the reader's head. And all I have are words, so I use them.

Needless to say, the other elements of the story are important, and I try to make them reflect the words so that they ALL convey something, greater than the sum of their parts.

Still working on it. But I think I'm getting there....

[Hedgetrimmer]

Humans collectively share a primitive memory, something that lives even deeper than the subconscious, a sort of genetic bond passed down from ancient generations. By choosing specific words and arranging them in a specific order, a writer is able to tap into this. I often read a sentence or a passage and find myself having to read it over and over, not because I didn't understand it but, rather, because the words resonated somewhere inside me that I just couldn't put my finger on. That's primitive memory. Using just any ol' words to tell a story isn't going to stir this deeper well of emotions.

[Esopha]

I think there's an element of language-loving in my work, if only because I know exactly how each character would say something. When I portray that character, or that scene, perfectly, it's a great feeling of accomplishment. But I don't write for the words, I write for the characters. I write because I'm so in love with each of them... they're not like children, they're like little bits of me that have been left in the garden for too long, and they've gotten over-grown and wild and insane. Seeing them grow, and seeing their stories grow with them, through the language I use is important to me.

But crafting sentences and phrases... not so much.

Of course, when I come up with something really clever, I have to show off a little bit. ;)

[sharpierae]

I like rhythms of words and other nerdy elements of language-- I work as a written word translator and get geeked about the subtleties of meaning, but when writing... i don't know, words aren't that high on the list of things that make me gleeful. Getting characters' voices right and transcribing a scene in the way I imagine it accurately definitely gives a kick, but I think (as a reader) I can tell when an author loves his/her words too much and they get in the way of the story. Or something.

cool question though.
xxxrae

[brittanimae]

I do love words, because I find that they do my bidding in a way that other things (my children, for example) don't. It's pretty rare for me to go back and read something I've written, no matter how much it seemed like poor writing at the time, and not thought to myself on some level--"wow, that had some merit to it." Somehow I can always express myself better in writing than any other way, even when I don't know I'm doing it. I think on some level it is a gift--the ability to use words well.

Here is a intriguing thought. Can a gift for words be genetic on any level? I have a grand-aunt who was a MacArthur fellowshipped poet (before her death) and most people in my family write well. But there was never really any discussion about how to write or actual writing in my family outside of school. My parents rarely even looked at my homework growing up. I'm very curious about what other people think about this idea.

[Monkey]

Here is a intriguing thought. Can a gift for words be genetic on any level? I have a grand-aunt who was a MacArthur fellowshipped poet (before her death) and most people in my family write well.

My aunt is a many-times-over published author, but my father (her brother) hates reading to the point where he won't play Final Fantasy-type RPG's...too much reading involved. It's not that he can't read, he's rather good at it, he just really doesn't enjoy it...sort of the way I feel about math. :)

I don't think it's genetic...but then again, I named my daughter Cerridwen (Goddess of Poetry) and my son Emrys Devon (Immortal Little Poet). It may well run in families, but be more a matter of Nurture than of Nature.



Yes, I love the words. I cringe at the idea of "slept" getting updated to "sleeped", and I hate seeing "thru" used instead of "through".

I love finding just the right word to fully express my thoughts. And I love that that same word, so precise moments ago, can be used again in another context and mean something totally different.

I love it when the words themselves make me pause and think. Pratchett does it a lot. I read Pratchett slowly, fully immersing myself in the words and the world they convey. Sometimes, though, the words are so perfect that I put the book down and go tell my husband about it...even though he read the same book yesterday.

It's not the literary classics that amaze me. It's Pratchett's slang terms for theivery in "Night Watch". :D

[OverTheHills&FarAway]

Monkey, your son's name is Emrys?

I think I may love you. Emrys has been in my heart for six years, ever since I started writing The Legend of Dinas Emrys (yet to be finished but whatever).

:) You make me a happy Jordan!

[Monkey]

Monkey, your son's name is Emrys?


Yes. :)

In fact, I read a book to him today called Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb, and it reminded me of this thread. (It's by Al Perkins) ((The book, not the thread.)) :tongue

The book is a study in rhythm.

It is almost entirely written to the rhythm of this one repeated stanza (which is always accompanied by pictures of monkeys playing drums)

Dum ditty
Dum ditty
Dum dum dum

When you say that out loud, it really rolls around on your tongue. The whole book does, and that makes it fun for me to read and fun for my children to listen to. My one-year-old consistently brings me this book to read to her, and my three-year-old giggles when I tap the book in rhythm to the words. You wouldn't have to know a word of english or even see the pictures for this book to sound fun.

It's simple, and it's genius.

I also love the subtext of the book; it starts with one thumb, one thumb, banging on a drum...then goes to one hand...then two...then others begin drumming...

the second to last page has
Millions of fingers!
Millions of thumbs!
Millions of monkeys!
Drumming on drums!


Then, the very last page has the original monkey banging one thumb against his drum, Dum Ditty, Dum Ditty, Dum Dum Dum.

A friend of mine calls it the book of Monkey Revolution.

No wonder I love it!
:D

[brittanimae]

I love that book! And Emrys is a very cool name--love of words right there.

[Hopcus]

I love the words that add up to my characters.