abyss
angel/angelic
awareness
beauty/beautiful
being
butterfly
calm
caress
consciousness
crystal
dawn
diamond
ecstasy
eternity/eternal
flower
glisten
happy
harmony
infinity/infinite
meditate/meditative
mind
nothingness
nothingness
oppression
peace
people (as in, “the people”)
pretty
rainbow
raindrop/rainy
silence
silence
soft
sparkle
spiritual
storm/stormy
struggle
stunning
sunset
sunny
sweet
tranquillity
tremble
These words fall into several
categories. One group concerns beauty, or things that are intrinsically
beautiful, such as butterflies and crystals. Another group includes words that relate
to spiritual awareness. One other category is words associated with
political movements. Then there are words that describe weather.
All of these are terrific words.
Most authors I know have written them at one time or another. It’s just that they’ve
been used so many times that they have sunk into greeting-card, cliché language. They
feel so tired they've already fallen asleep.
Since they are words for real and crucial
things, how can we come up with expressions that function in a similar manner,
but still surprise and delight the reader?
Get as close as possible to the
actual experience you’re describing. Let’s say you’re writing about a
sunrise after a rainstorm that led to a moment of transcendent awareness. What
exactly did you see and experience? When you say “ecstasy,” what were you
actually feeling? Where were the raindrops, and precisely what type of flower
were they on? If raindrops were trembling on a leaf, could you push it farther
and say they were “rattling” on the leaf? What colors were the clouds that you’ve never heard described before. Not “silver” but “white gold,“ for instance. Use your imagination to stretch the
language as far as it can go and still connect with your reader.
If you’re talking about a
shantytown, can you find details that are so specific that the
oppression that produces that situation becomes painfully clear? That way the
oppression doesn’t get obscured by a generalized word that could describe many
different things.
Another way to rescue these
overused words is to place them in an unexpected context or next to a word they
don’t usually appear with. What about a “delicious crystal”? Or an “eternal
alley cat”? Or an “elegant rain”? Or a “Monarch” instead of a “butterfly”?
I hope I don’t sound too cynical
about these words for beauty, spiritual experiences, and political change. All
those things are important, but it’s also crucial to strive toward freshness of language.
Language must be continually recreated. Its respiration is vital
to writers.
Other recent posts about writing topics:
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