When figurative language is bad
The other day I posted Jane Austen's writing advice clipped from her letters to a writing niece. Afterwards, I got three different people writing me privately to ask, basically, what is so bad about figurative language?
I thought, if three ask me, others might wonder, or at least want to discuss it. So, with the caveat that "bad" is relative (in other words, if the prose works for you, it's not bad) I went on to dig out the notes I took a billion years ago [note the figurative language there, har har] from a discussion on this topic. This was at an eighties con. Being new at the con circuit after a hiatus of over ten years, I didn't know any of the writers, so I didn't note down their names--it was faster to write A, B, C, and D.
A: Bad writers use figurative language that might sound pretty but the words don't mean anything.
B. I think of those as empty calories.
C. I have my own list, but what do you mean by not meaning anything?
A. Okay, here's the example I always give in workshops. "A touch of anger colored his voice." We all know what touch is--something we can do with our fingers, or our tongue, or whatever. But one thing we can't touch is voices. So the word becomes meaningless.
B. (breaking in) Empty calories.
A. If you leave it out, the meaning is basically unchanged: Anger colored his voice.
C. I like that. We all think of anger as 'red.'
D. If I can put a word in here, I don't agree. We're told that everyone sees anger as red, but I don't. If anything I see it as white, like lightning. I think 'colored' here is lazy writing, a cliche: we all know what it means, but the word 'colored' does no actual work in the sentence.
C. Okay, so what would you put?
D. I'd use a verb suggesting something you can actually hear, since this is about a voice. Anger sharpened his voice, sharpened his consonants, anger tightened his voice, anger roughened his voice, anger thinned his voice. Depends on how you hear this particular character expressing anger. And if you have that character with the roughness of anger in his voice, and the next character express anger with a shrill voice, then you have differentiated those two characters with precise verbs. Whereas 'colored' is so generic it doesn't differentiate any characters.
B. That's what I mean by empty calories. When I do workshops, I pick out words that don't actually do anything for characterization. If you cut them out, nothing changes. So back to touch. If you mean a tiny bit, I had a professor once who dinged me for using "soupçon"--said that that had become a cliche when he was young. Why use a French word when we have gazillion good word in English?
A. Right. Instead of the generic 'touch' you could have a dash, if you're talking about cooking, a hint, a suggestion, intimation. A suspicion if you're not quite sure, a gleam if it's visual, a scintilla if you want to make the character sound pompous,a spark if sparks actually work there.
B. Other empty calorie words I see too often are 'tinge' when there isn't any painting around, though tinge is about color. And so is nuance.
C. I really hate that word. Too many people use it incorrectly. Why not subtlety?
A. Because most of us can't spell it.
(audience loved that.)
B. I totally agree. The word 'fine' used to be generic for niceties, subtleties, delicacy.
C. Hairline. Distinction.
B. Another is 'very' used as an adjective. Okay, this happened. There was this sentence totally empty of calories, "His very heart was touched." I opened one of my girlfriend's romance novels, and that was the first sentence I saw. When I pointed out that only surgeons can touch your heart, and it's not a romantic sight, she threw the book at me, saying, "We know what it means." And I said, "Then why didn't the writer take the time to craft a sentence with real punch? This is forgettable. And 'very heart'? Please.
D. I agree, but my objection first of all would be to the verb. You can line up the most elegant subject, object, modifiers, but if it's hooked together with 'was' the effect is flat. English is jam-packed with terrific verbs. Falling back on 'was' is lazy writing--especially if you want the moment to be emotionally powerful, why are you using a passive construction?
There was more (including a lot about inexact terms in SF), but this is probably long enough to get the idea across.
I thought, if three ask me, others might wonder, or at least want to discuss it. So, with the caveat that "bad" is relative (in other words, if the prose works for you, it's not bad) I went on to dig out the notes I took a billion years ago [note the figurative language there, har har] from a discussion on this topic. This was at an eighties con. Being new at the con circuit after a hiatus of over ten years, I didn't know any of the writers, so I didn't note down their names--it was faster to write A, B, C, and D.
A: Bad writers use figurative language that might sound pretty but the words don't mean anything.
B. I think of those as empty calories.
C. I have my own list, but what do you mean by not meaning anything?
A. Okay, here's the example I always give in workshops. "A touch of anger colored his voice." We all know what touch is--something we can do with our fingers, or our tongue, or whatever. But one thing we can't touch is voices. So the word becomes meaningless.
B. (breaking in) Empty calories.
A. If you leave it out, the meaning is basically unchanged: Anger colored his voice.
C. I like that. We all think of anger as 'red.'
D. If I can put a word in here, I don't agree. We're told that everyone sees anger as red, but I don't. If anything I see it as white, like lightning. I think 'colored' here is lazy writing, a cliche: we all know what it means, but the word 'colored' does no actual work in the sentence.
C. Okay, so what would you put?
D. I'd use a verb suggesting something you can actually hear, since this is about a voice. Anger sharpened his voice, sharpened his consonants, anger tightened his voice, anger roughened his voice, anger thinned his voice. Depends on how you hear this particular character expressing anger. And if you have that character with the roughness of anger in his voice, and the next character express anger with a shrill voice, then you have differentiated those two characters with precise verbs. Whereas 'colored' is so generic it doesn't differentiate any characters.
B. That's what I mean by empty calories. When I do workshops, I pick out words that don't actually do anything for characterization. If you cut them out, nothing changes. So back to touch. If you mean a tiny bit, I had a professor once who dinged me for using "soupçon"--said that that had become a cliche when he was young. Why use a French word when we have gazillion good word in English?
A. Right. Instead of the generic 'touch' you could have a dash, if you're talking about cooking, a hint, a suggestion, intimation. A suspicion if you're not quite sure, a gleam if it's visual, a scintilla if you want to make the character sound pompous,a spark if sparks actually work there.
B. Other empty calorie words I see too often are 'tinge' when there isn't any painting around, though tinge is about color. And so is nuance.
C. I really hate that word. Too many people use it incorrectly. Why not subtlety?
A. Because most of us can't spell it.
(audience loved that.)
B. I totally agree. The word 'fine' used to be generic for niceties, subtleties, delicacy.
C. Hairline. Distinction.
B. Another is 'very' used as an adjective. Okay, this happened. There was this sentence totally empty of calories, "His very heart was touched." I opened one of my girlfriend's romance novels, and that was the first sentence I saw. When I pointed out that only surgeons can touch your heart, and it's not a romantic sight, she threw the book at me, saying, "We know what it means." And I said, "Then why didn't the writer take the time to craft a sentence with real punch? This is forgettable. And 'very heart'? Please.
D. I agree, but my objection first of all would be to the verb. You can line up the most elegant subject, object, modifiers, but if it's hooked together with 'was' the effect is flat. English is jam-packed with terrific verbs. Falling back on 'was' is lazy writing--especially if you want the moment to be emotionally powerful, why are you using a passive construction?
There was more (including a lot about inexact terms in SF), but this is probably long enough to get the idea across.