Multisensory LANGUAGE
NEW SERIES! ADVANCED CREATIVE WRITING TECHNIQUES
In the first of a new series aimed at honing existing writing skills, James McCreet looks at developing a unique voice through word choice
What is advanced writing? It’s the next level after you’ve already learned the basic tools of description, dialogue, narrative perspective, storytelling, exposition and the old showing/telling question.
It’s when your writing starts to take on a distinctive voice and flavour. Call it style. By that stage, you’re normally drifting into the realms of literature or the very best of your genre, but the techniques are useful to every writer.
We all know that effective description relies on considered choices of exactly the right words, the avoidance of cliché, judicious punctuation, and language that appeals broadly to the senses. You have to paint a picture and create an ambience.
So far, so standard.
Taking description to the next level means modifying our understanding of words and how they combine. It’s one thing to choose between synonyms (dark, pitchy, inky, unlit, Stygian etc.) or to know the important differences between gleam, glisten or glow, but quite another to select vocabulary based on criteria such as sound, syllables, etymology, connotation, and morphology. Once you start applying these factors to your word choices, you’re creating something that goes beyond mere description. You’re making your reader feel.