There is nothing quite as wonderful as having a friend who is also a writer. While writing as a primary skill is something that all of my friends are quite capable of, only one other companion of mine pursues it as a hobby as well. And she is a remarkable writer whose work is already imbued with the emotion and forethought that many modern novelists lack. Because of our joint affinity for the art, we trade our short stories like they are secrets and we are two grammar school girls whispering to one another under a playground slide. Recently, we traded stories that we planned to submit to our school's selective literary magazine and she paid me a comment whose weight cannot be equaled by any sum of gold: she called me a "gifted wordsmith".
Just like a silversmith works with silver and a goldsmith works with golds, a wordsmith--the suspense!--works with words. So...just a writer, right? No. A person who tries to bend the shape back into their silver bangle is not a silversmith (and not particularly bright if they're twisting up their jewelry). A person who strings the most basic words together to form a sentence is not a wordsmith. A wordsmith needs to have mastered most, if not all, levels of their written language and cultivated an expansive vocabulary from which only the best words are harvested. These people are the ones who write exquisite literature, whose stories resonate not just because of their structure or contents, but because of the words through which they are communicated.
Receiving this compliment made my cheeks grow roses. I pride myself in the unique selection and arrangement of the words I use, as I feel this is what distinguishes me as a writer. To have another pursuer of the craft refer to me as such incited feelings of confidence that are rarely found in writers (we are a famously self-loathing bunch). It also inspired me to share some advice about becoming a better wordsmith and how achieving such a title can improve the quality of your work.
My first tip is to collect words. This may seem to be a ridiculous undertaking (and with collectibles that have such low value! Now we know why there are no word conventions!), but it will help expand your vocabulary. Yes, you do glean a lot of words from daily conversations and movies and books and articles, but you will not remember the meaning of all of them. By relying entirely on your memory, you will forget a lot of important terms that could later fill that irritating gap in your sentence where no other word seems to fit. I suggest instantly recording words you find in either a Note on your phone or in a Word Document that can be easily accessed while you are writing. You will learn and be able to recall more words than if you depended on memory alone, and you might even save a dinner party by entertaining guests with your dazzling vocabulary. Your guests don't know what golgotha means? Well, tell them to hold onto their drug store wine, because it means "a place or occasion of great suffering". Checkmate.
After you have equipped yourself with the actual words, you will be able to forge beautiful art from your raw material. With a little practice, of course. There are so many words out there, but so often, their sequencing is identical and their use is little considered. While the story, of course, is the heart of any piece of writing, the words comprise the most basic infrastructure (think atoms and molecules and cells) and are often taken for granted. We tend to pay little attention to the actual words used to convey an idea, which is a shame considering how crucial it is for blossoming writers to learn how great authors use their words. Once we do though, we often unearth innuendos and implications the author planted using word choice alone. Take Shakespeare as an example. We spend so much time trying to decipher what Shakespeare is communicating to us that we often neglect to explore his characters' diction. Shakespeare is the father of the modern pun, taking advantage of homonyms and synonyms and every "-nym" in between to make jokes and occasionally foreshadow a future death. It's all deliberate: Shakespeare selected these particular words to evoke certain feelings in his audience. And you can do the same--you know, without the nonstop sex jokes.
I am extremely meticulous when it comes to choosing words for my writing. To me, there are no true synonyms (did you hear that, Past Purple Prose Me? You shouldn't have used pallid and wan and pale and ashen interchangeably.) and certain words need to be picked with prior consideration. Some, of course, I arrive to naturally and I still practice what I preach when it comes to picking the first word that comes to mind. However, this "first word" rule applies to more basic terms: say dark when it's dark, say eyes when you're discussing eyes (not orbs or wells or pools of sadness). When it comes to descriptors and modifiers and even some verbs, I like to choose more unusual words that still get across my point. Take this short passage from my most recent short story, "The Second Chance".
Joy couldn't perceive the familiar surroundings anyhow: her brain was a splinter preserved in an amber of vicodin, a still body shrouded in muslin sheets and quietly suffocated. The accident had blasted the scaffoldings from her mind and now her hazy, haphazard thoughts spilt from her mouth like stars across a bruised sky.Though my blog posts tend to sound a little derivative, I like to think that my creative writing doesn't sound like most other prose. And I like it that way. I am the first to tire of hackneyed tropes and predictable phrases, particularly in writing, and I try to write with originality in mind. In this particular passage, I am referring to the character's sedated mind as small and suppressed--without ever using those words. I love invoking mental images (a little too much, I think, as it means I tend to neglect other elements like setting and dialogue) and I do so by being prudent when I pick my words. For example, I say the accident blasted the scaffoldings from her mind: "blasted" here is used instead of, say, knocked or tore down because the accident was sudden and devastating--like a blast.
Hopefully, by now you understand that your diction can serve as a sort of Sparknotes to your own writing. Most writers try to at least attempt subtlety in their creative work, which means you need to find a way to communicate mood or tone or character without being horrifically blunt. Being conscious of your word choice will have an impression on the reader, whether they know it or not, and impact how they are perceiving what they are reading. Say a character is cold: okay, so maybe they're a little unapproachable and detached. But say a character is arctic: they're "cold", but the word also conjures up other words like inhospitable and bracing and isolated. The power of words is astonishing and it can be yours if the price is right--and if you're willing to put in some effort.
Wordsmithing, like so many things, is not a God-given gift. You are not born a talented wordsmith, primarily because you are born not really knowing any words. Like the gold and silversmiths, you have to hone your skills to create something beautiful. And if you have the proper materials, instruction, and determination, you too can forge a piece of art.
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