Diction: The Spice of the Narrative Voice

Transcript

Hi. I'm Mary Brydon-Kehoe, a writer and editor of fiction and creative nonfiction, and this is The Laboratory.

So for today's episode I'm going to be talking about diction. Diction is really interesting as it relates to our style. Diction is the choice and use of words in our writing to give it meaning, to get across our messages to the audience. And what's really particularly interesting about it is that it's kind of the finest grain detail that we have control over in our writing, what makes up our style, how it seems to others, how it comes across, what our “voice” is, quote unquote.

But, like a lot of areas of writing, I caution people to use a lot of discipline when it comes to diction, because like spice, a little bit of it can go quite a long way. If you use too, too much, it can either become unpalatable or it can actually distract from the other flavours that you're trying to create in your writing, if we're going with sort of that cooking analogy.

I remember reading a book a few years back now, but it stands out just the same. There was an author who actually used the word “winnowing” an awful lot. Like I'm talking about they used it—it was almost every chapter I think, or it was enough times that I could figure out that they really liked the word, it was something that stood out to me as part of the choice that they were making. And that really isn't the goal with diction, with word choices. Obviously you can have some that are really interesting to use, that you might want to use. You might have heard a word that you're trying desperately to fit into your writing some way and think, “Oh this would be great if I could use this somewhere,” but the unfortunate thing is that most of that is going to be something that you're going to enjoy and maybe your readers might not.

In that example that I gave (and I won't name the book just specifically because I did like it) but it kind of threw me off a bit because I could kind of see the puppet strings behind everything, and that's not necessarily an experience that I'm looking for as a reader. I don't necessarily want to see those kinds of things going on. This particular book—it was a science fiction, sort of post-apocalyptic world setting—and I can understand maybe trying to build up a theme, trying to build up something thematic using the word, but to me it didn't quite link with any particular theme that they were trying to create.

What you can do instead is take a look at—sometimes the genre actually has more influence over this than anything. It's interesting to see word choices and repetitive words and things like that in, for example, epic poetry, or if you're looking at something kind of inspired by epic poetry like Tolkien. In those situations those are called epithets, and they have a particular purpose. Because it's poetry, because it's poetic sort of writing, it's repetitive, it's easy for people to understand and remember, which would have been a great function for people who, for example, were actually performing those poems in an oral setting.

So it doesn't quite translate to something else, something more like a modern book, modern story or genre, where you're not expecting to see the same word over and over again. Now of course, it depends on the kind of word that you're talking about. So “winnowing,” for example, to use that previous example, is fairly obvious because it's not standard. It's not something that we use in everyday language when we're talking to people. Obviously we have articles like “the,” we have nouns that come up frequently, we have names and things like that in speech and in writing, but it doesn't stand out to us because those things are—they're meant to be there, they're the connecting words, the connecting tissue between the larger words or the more unique words that you might choose.

So how do we avoid that problem, how do we find balance in our writing? Well, if you look at spice, again, as an example, you kind of taste as you go with spice, in the kitchen at least. You kind of see what's missing, you kind of fill things out a little bit. A proper spice or a proper hit of acidity to a meal can actually really improve things, can make it more complex, can give it more understated notes—layers that you're working with—and it's ultimately more palatable, more enjoyable. But like if we're looking at syntax or if we're looking at diction particularly here, you want to avoid those repetitions, those repetitions of obvious words that we don't use too often. The ones that are kind of the “ten dollar words,” so to speak. Words that you might have in the back of your mind, thinking, “Where can I use this? Where can I—where can I fit this into my writing? I'd like to fit into—I'd like to fit it in somewhere.”

And to me, honestly, that's kind of the—kind of a backwards approach to what I'm talking about. More or less what I like to see in writing is kind of this restraint, actually. You want to kind of—you want to develop this ear, this discernment about writing and about the language that you're using. Kind of be conscious of it. But too unique a word, obviously, here can be annoying if it's used more than once, even the odd word that isn't too obvious. We don't like filler words, we don't like filler phrases. I'm going a little crazy here because I can hear myself and my own filler words coming out, but that's what makes us human. But in our writing, the good thing is, is that we have the opportunity to step back from it and see kind of what we're looking at as a whole picture. We have an opportunity to edit it, and that's why that's so important.

So I mean, yeah, you can use those words, those great words that you found and kind of—maybe you've got them in a list somewhere, I don't know, or in the back of your head—but it shouldn't be sort of a competition to see if you can use the words. You're not competing with anybody, I mean, unless that is a contest that you're participating in—sounds fun—but you need to be more careful about what your audience is going to interpret this as.

Like I said—the previous example I gave, I really noticed it. I was like, “Oh, this person really likes this word.” And what that does is it kind of, like I say, it takes me out of the narrative for a bit. It kind of leaves me feeling like “Is this more about the writing itself than about the story? which, the writing serves the story; it should never be the focus.

So how do you avoid that? So obviously, again, you avoid the repetitions, too unique a word can be annoying and obvious. The other thing is that you want to make sure that you know how to properly consult a thesaurus and make sure that the word you're actually using means what you think it means. So thesaurus and dictionaries, any kind of reference materials, these can really, really make a difference if you're using them the correct way.

So sometimes people—either they have a word at the back of their mind or they look for words that are really impressive, for example. And you see this with maybe a little bit more, maybe a newer writer, somebody who hasn't quite learned that restraint, that sort of discernment that I'm talking about. So, maybe you flip open the thesaurus and you find a word that looks really cool and you've never seen it before. Now, and I've heard people in academics caution against this very same thing, because to people who know—and a lot of your readers might know as well—they will pick up on that, they'll be able to see that it's kind of a quote unquote “thesaurus word.” It's something that you found that you wanted to impress people with.

And I think that really gets at the heart of the issue here that we're talking about, that it's more about—the diction should never be sort of this gateway to seeing how you write or how you thought of the writing itself. I mean, we can appreciate that. A lot of us, like myself included, people in sort of the industry or who are really interested in writing themselves are going to have an appreciation for your writing if it's done well.

But what we won't appreciate is if you're trying to kind of impress us along the way. If it seems unnatural, if it seems forced. Using a thesaurus, you want to make sure that you're double checking, triple checking that the word actually means what you think it does. You want to go back and make sure that that's actually something that you intended to say. Kind of like when we hear a word or rather, we actually read a word first before hearing it. If somebody hears us pronounce it incorrectly, it's going to be obvious and distracting—potentially. Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Everybody needs to experience hearing the word first before they can pronounce it properly, or they need to look up a pronunciation guide. But that's the same thing: if you want to make sure that it's not going to stand out in your writing, you have that opportunity to filter out those words and to be careful with the choosing of them to make sure that it has the impact that you're looking for.

So, like I say, make sure that you're referencing, that you're looking back at your word choices, that you are—when you're choosing them, I mean, maybe not in a first draft—first draft is really important just to get things down—but you want to make sure that you've gone back and any particular words that you're worried about or that you think maybe I didn't quite use that correctly. I do this all the time. I actually kind of self edit as I go. Even—doesn't matter what I'm writing, it could be a message to somebody. If I use a word that I think, “Oh, this would be really good here. It's really succinct,” for example. But I want to make sure that if I've not used it before—if I'm not as familiar with it—that I'm double checking, triple checking those things.

And beyond this—so there's also the levels of language to consider and the audience, the target audience. So conscious language—and not just being conscious of the language that you're using generally. I mean, obviously, I think all writers to a certain extent are this way. But it's consciously using words. For example, if you're using a word that has a particular stereotype, has a particular alternate meaning, the other thing that's important to keep an eye on is: how is it used in slang or in common usage elsewhere, in conversation? Does this come across a certain way?

The other thing is you want to make sure that you're actually, you're talking to your audience as plainly as humanly possible. Clear is almost always better. “Clear is kind” is a phrase that I've come across before professionally, especially with actually in human resources. But it's true anywhere. I think it's true even if you are a writer, if you're telling a story. Like I say, the story is the most important thing here. You're not trying to impress us, you're not trying to knock our socks off with the actual writing itself—that’s sort of ornamentation. What the heart of the matter is, is what you're actually—what you're trying to convey to your audience, what the message is underneath. Can we picture those things correctly? Is there an easier way of writing this so that people will understand it more?

It's something to be aware of. It's something to kind of coach yourself into, because if you purposefully—and I'm going to use a big word here, kind of on purpose—but obfuscate—if you obfuscate the message, if people have to pause and think, “Okay, what does that mean?” Maybe you've not heard that word before. It means to kind of muddy the waters, to kind of make it unclear. And I could have just said that to start with, for example, but if I decided that that made me sound smarter, or it made me sound more like I know what I'm talking about, that's kind of secondary to the message here.

So the message is that you want to make sure that it's appropriate to your audience. And like I say, if you can include more people in your audience, that's going to be better for you as a writer, it's going to be better that it reaches—your message reaches a broader scope of people. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

I mean, besides specializing, obviously, if you are writing a doctoral thesis or something like that, then you're going to be writing for a very particular audience. But if you're looking at broad spectrum—maybe commercial writing or novel writing, for example—the more people who can access your writing, the better it's going to be in terms of community engagement, in terms of the actual readers that you're able to approach with it. They're your consumers at the end of the day as well, so you want to make sure that things are… not just palatable for everyone—I don't want that to be kind of mistaken here for what I mean—but it's worthwhile thinking about, are there any blocks to somebody understanding this? Have I made this too complicated? Can I boil it down? Because the other thing about simple and clear is that they're very hard to do on the back-end. They're very hard to do for writers a lot of the time, because you know what you mean, but somebody else might not. And finding the way to write that, that is simpler, that is easier to understand is, while is a worthwhile pursuit, can be very challenging. So it's kind of one of those things that you have to build up to in your writing. And this is a really good skill to practice.

So next time, maybe, when you are looking at your writing, think, “Is there a way that I can make this simpler?” At the end of the day, you want it to be as accessible as possible for your readers, whether that's a particular target audience or not, that's great to kind of have that in mind. You want to make sure that they are getting the most possible out of it, otherwise… what's the point?

So that's the advice that I'm going to leave you with today, and hopefully it makes sense. And yeah, so thank you for tuning in, and hopefully you found some value in what I had to say here today. If you have any questions for me, if you have any comments or you want to discuss anything, feel free to drop those in the comment section below. Otherwise, you can also reach out to me through social media or through my email, which should be at the bottom of the website here.

Alright, have a fantastic day!

Mary Brydon-Kehoe provides structural, stylistic and copy editing services for a variety of written works through her agency, Elixir Editorial. From time to time she dabbles in her own writing projects which tend toward the speculative genre.

She is a member of both Editors Canada and the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), as well as a founding member and former chair of the Toronto Arts & Letters Club writing group. A longtime lover of the English language, Mary is passionate about supporting writers on the journey to inspire the world.