Big Words?

[Lafayette]

I have a friend who is acting as my editor and is doing a good job and I so I pay attention to what she says.

Recently, she caution me about using words that my readers may be unfamiliar with and run in danger of being though of as a pedantic.

This makes me question somethings. I remember the third time around reading Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant that I made a list of the words he employed and then looked them up in a dictionary. Donaldson is one of favorite writers and is considered so by others.

My question: is if Donaldson can use unknown words why can't I? What is the rule of thumb doing so?

 

[Nick B]

My rule, is if the word comes naturaly in the sentence I am writing, then it is fine. It is quite possible I know some unusual words, but if they feel natural, then I go with it.
I never look up alternate words using a thesaurus, unless I am either using a word too much, or if a word just feels wrong.

 

[Brian G Turner]

What is the rule of thumb doing so?

Stephen King said something on the lines of "If you need to look in a thesaurus for a word, then it's a wrong word".

The argument goes like this: your natural storytelling voice will use a certain vocabulary range, so when you try increase it artificially, your prose can end up staggered and clunky and not read so naturally at all.

Hope that helps, and welcome to the chrons forums.

 

[hopewrites]

Words can be confusing because different words with similar or the same meanings combine to create different imagery.

Chemical castration sounds like some horrible acid burn, when really it's just pharmaceutically induced impotence. Which sounds like an embarrassing side effect.

As a reader I would say use the words that best create the image your after. If you question the clarity of a specific image you've created have it critiqued.

 

[LittleStar]

As well as the above, character voice might also come into it. Depending on how close your narrative is to you POV character you might wish to adjust your vocab choice accordingly.
Purely used as an example (no offence meant to either of the following professions) I'd expect a museum curator to use larger, more scientific word than someone working at a drive through fast food chain.

Tailor your vocab to the character voice for a closer read.

 

[zmunkz]

I think you can just write however you naturally do without worrying too much about it. Often words will be in a context that lets one figure it out (I first learned sanctimonious from reading Harry Potter, for instance), or else people can consult dictionaries.

That being said, I agree with @Brian Turner ... do not artificially inflate your verbiage. Every time you hit a word the reader doesn't know, you run the risk of kicking them from the story (as your friend warned). Do it too many times and they might think you are doing it on purpose, and you'll lose them. This won't normally be an issue unless you ARE doing it on purpose.

...so don't look for a more complicated word for its own sake.

I have a copy of this book, which I love... check out this abecedarian insult quoted within:

Sir, you are an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal, excerebrose, facinorous, gnathonic, hircine, ithyphallic, jumentous, kyphotic, labrose, mephitic, napiform, oligophrenial, papuliferous, quisquilian, rebarbative, saponaceous, thersitical, unguinous, ventripotent, wlatsome, xylocephalous, yirning zoophyte.

Now imagine finding anything like that in a fantasy novel. It quickly feels like the author is a pretentious egotist trying to make me feel dumb... and I don't like reading books by people who want me to feel dumb! So yeah, keep it natural, and you'll be fine. Try to sound smart by picking big words, you'll probably lose readers.

 

[Kerrybuchanan]

abecedarian insult

This is one I'm going to have to learn by heart. It will fit nicely alongside the incomprehensible* Malayan insult I trundle out from time to time to put down insufferable people. I enjoy seeing the look on their faces as I deliver it with a smile -- they don't know if they're being insulted or complimented.

*Except to Malayan-speaking people. I have to be a little bit careful, just in case it backfires.

 

[Lafayette]

Thank you one and all for your answers and comments. I appreciate them.

I will try to keep my writing natural and not to turn off my readers.

However, part of my question is unanswered: why can Stephen Donaldson get away with using big words?

P.S. Thanks for the welcome. I think I'm going to like it here.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

why can Stephen Donaldson get away with using big words?

He does?
He's a bit marmite.


Actually I might give a particular character "big words."

 

[hopewrites]

No body on earth "gets away" with anything.

There will always be someone who says "hey! I don't think so..."

Why does one author appear to get away with something people tell you not to do in your writing? Because society at large has accepted what that author has written, while being disappointed/put off/disgusted with the thing they just told you not to do.

Why tell you not to do it? So they don't have another piece they love despite the difficulty of dealing with the thing they told you not to do. (This applies to more than just "don't use big words" by the way, which is why I'm wording my answer as I am.)

So the answer to what you really want to know; "can I get away with it too?" is secretly yes. But!
You have to do it so well and in a piece so awesome that everyone over looks it.

 

[Ihe]

It depends on the character's particular voice. A smug intellectual will use big words to confuse a dumber person, an a-hole will use more insults towards others, a simpleton will use simple words, maybe spelled wrong. If it makes sense, it's ok.

 

[J Riff]

Nobody gets away with anything? Somebody always gets away with something?
There's a way to use 'big' words that leaves no question what the word means. Look for it in books.
I will try to find an example, but it would seem to be okay to use a word like 'obstreperous' as long
as the mood/tone of the character/action has already been established. 'Refractory' will probably need to be looked up.)

 

[Cory Swanson]

Everyone has the definitions at their fingertips these days. I like learning from books and I feel a large vocabulary is a credit to you. That being said, keeping your writing in a consistent and appropriate voice is a challenge.

If your story is interesting enough, people will read and learn from the context. Find the perfect word for what you are trying to say, not just the biggest and most obscure word.

Do be careful to not jar the reader out of the world you are creating by saying something in a cumbersome fashion. Like in a movie, you are trying to hide the camera. Make them forget there is an author.

 

[J Riff]

That's right - 'learn from the context' , spot on. You actually learn the big word from the way it's used. It subs for something else, in a sentence, which is already fairly clear. Well said, Cory.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

If the word is grounded in the sentence and scene then it will be easy for the reader to understand it without looking up and needing to come out of the story.

 

[Lafayette]

Everyone has the definitions at their fingertips these days. I like learning from books and I feel a large vocabulary is a credit to you. That being said, keeping your writing in a consistent and appropriate voice is a challenge.

If your story is interesting enough, people will read and learn from the context. Find the perfect word for what you are trying to say, not just the biggest and most obscure word.

Do be careful to not jar the reader out of the world you are creating by saying something in a cumbersome fashion. Like in a movie, you are trying to hide the camera. Make them forget there is an author.

 

[Lafayette]

I believe you have come the closest to what I want to do as a writer. I like words and I want to use them. I don't want to lose my reader and I don't wish to insult their intelligence. I witsh to be like J. R. R. Tolkein, Stephen R. Donaldson, and Guy Gavriel Kay, but not like James Joyce.

 

[Cory Swanson]

Please do not be James Joyce. He is to writing what Schoenberg was to music.

 

[NbDawn]

It seems most here are in agreement that if the words don't come naturally as you write and if they are words you have to look up in the dictionary, you shouldn't use them. I disagree for two reasons. First, what comes naturally for one person may not come naturally for another. We all have different backgrounds and so will be used to different words. This leads to my second reason. Your characters are different too. If you're writing in close-third, then your PoV character may be one who is very well educated and tends to use big words. Or he/she may be a simple character who only things in the simplest terms.

Another thing to consider is your target audience. Are you writing for teens? Are you writing for a more sophisticated adult audience? Are the words you want to use common and/or well-known in your genre?

I personally do not mind having to look up the occasional word when I read. It broadens my horizon. And sometimes the word chosen is more appropriate and has a deeper meaning than its better-known synonym.

 

[Ragandar]

Occasional is probably a key word in that opinion, though. As far as I am aware, nobody enjoys requiring a dictionary in order to make sense of the story.

The issue with not writing something that feels natural is probably that it is really hard to do well. If it does not feel natural to you when you write it, there is a pretty good chance it will not feel natural to the reader when they read it. That's going to put them off. Not the fact that they don't know a word, but the way a forced vocabulary will affect your storytelling.

Also, if you as the author don't know the word, there's probably a bigger chance that the reader does not know the word. I have no empirical evidence to back that up, but it does feel like that would be a logical assumption.