Use Everyday Words to Create Vivid Images in Your Writing

**Note: This post was apparently published in Google Reader and other feed readers, but it never went out to my email subscribers or (most incomprehensibly) even published on my blog. Here’s the whole post, again, and everyone should receive it. Hope you enjoy it.**

You want your writing to be vivid, not vague. Let’s look at the definition of each of those “V” words to get a more vivid picture of what I’m getting at.

*Definitions are from Dictionary.com. I’ve boldfaced the parts of the definitions I’m most stressing.*

Vivid:

1.     strikingly bright or intense, as color, light, etc.: a vivid green.
2.     full of life; lively; animated: a vivid personality.
3.     presenting the appearance, freshness, spirit, etc., of life; realistic: a vivid account.
4.     strong, distinct, or clearly perceptible: a vivid recollection.
5.     forming distinct and striking mental images: a vivid imagination.

Vague:

1.     not clearly or explicitly stated or expressed: vague promises.
2.     indefinite or indistinct in nature or character, as ideas or feelings: a vague premonition of disaster.
3.     not clear or distinct to the sight or any other sense; perceptible or recognizable only in an indefinite way: vague shapes in the dark; vague murmurs behind a door.
4.     not definitely established, determined, confirmed, or known; uncertain: a vague rumor; The date of his birth is vague.

Vivid and Poetic Writing

In his essay, Politics And The English Language, George Orwell translated “a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort,” as he put it. He cited a famous passage from the Bible, King James Version–Ecclesiastes 9:11:

“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

That is a poetic, elegant sentence expressing a clear and profound insight on the nature of human life while calling up strong mental images.

Vague and Pretentious Writing

Orwell rewrote that verse from Ecclesiastes into modern English (he wrote this in the 1940’s), and here’s the result:

“Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.”

Yes, his rewrite is over the top, but he used the type of writing that many people then and now consider to be “intelligent” and “professional.”

Breaking It Down

Orwell elucidates:

“The whole tendency of modern prose is away from concreteness. Now analyse these two sentences a little more closely. The first contains 49 words but only 60 syllables, and all its words are those of everyday life. The second contains 38 words of 90 syllables: 18 of its words are from Latin roots, and one from Greek.” [Emphasis mine]

He really gets to the problem here:

“The first sentence contains six vivid images, and only one phrase (’time and chance’) that could be called vague. The second contains not a single fresh, arresting phrase, and in spite of its 90 syllables it gives only a shortened version of the meaning contained in the first.” [Emphasis mine]

The sentence from Ecclesiastes is simple, clear, direct, and filled with everyday words–it’s extremely elegant and profoundly poetic. And it vigorously hits you with vivid images that resonate, that make the sentence come to life and make you ponder its idea.

In contrast, the modern English version is filled with pretentious words and utterly lacking in vivid imagery–it’s terrible writing that doesn’t convey its message memorably at all–who would even continue to read it after the first line or two? The sentence is boring, hard to understand, and certainly doesn’t impact you in anywhere near the way the original version does.

How to Make this Work for You

Try to make your meaning as clear as possible without concerning yourself how “professional” your writing comes across. Strive for clarity, such that anyone can immediately deduce your central point.

Try to create concrete images in your writing by using real, “earthy” words, words that describe actual things actually. Use words from everyday life, words that most people are easily familiar with, words that really mean something concrete and substantive–as the author of Ecclesiastes did.

The “biggest” words that author used were perhaps understanding and happeneth–not particularly big words, either. Everything else was short, simple, and–the key here–substantive. The rewrite used tons of words like commensurate, invariably, and phenomena–all words that have their place, but not when they’re lumped in with a whole bunch of words that all sound like that.

Ironically, you’re much more likely to evoke striking images by using simple, “everyday” words than you would be if you’re too focused on how smart you sound.

Also, by clearly and simply and honestly expressing your message, you stand a much better chance of producing something elegant than you ever will by trying to write elegantly in the first place, as that often ends up devolving into pretension and vagueness.

A Disclaimer

Finally, this is not a call to always use the most basic word possible or to dumb down your writing or to always avoid using little-known, more descriptive words. I’m all about expanding one’s vocabulary so that you more readily and naturally can insert unique words into your prose.

In fact, in this very post, I’ve used words like elucidate, deduce, and substantive–not necessarily “big” words that we rarely hear, but I could have used explain, understand, and solid instead and been more immediately clear to a wider audience.

It works, though, because I’ve mixed those lesser-known words in with mostly everyday words. I’ve seasoned my prose here and there with them rather than lumping lots of them together.