by Aaron Gansky @adgansky

You’re using language when you write. Can’t do it without. But language is more a term encompassing vocabulary, imagery, and figurative language. Though it’s of vital importance, it seems to be the thing that is most often overlooked.

As writers, we put notoriously little thought into how we use language, instead relying on our present knowledge and tactics.

Commercial Writing vs. Literary Writing

There seems to be a subtle (or not so subtle) difference between what we’d term “literary” writing and “commercial” writing. If you’re unsure of what those terms mean, I’ll define them simply and basely:

Commercial fiction is written to sell to a mass market. It is generally of less “literary” value because the emphasis is not on language or characters, but on story.

Literature, conversely, has a much smaller market. The focus of literary works is more on the art of the story, the way in which it is told, and the overall lasting impact it has on the reader.

If we think of this in context of movies, “literary” works would be the ones winning the Academy Awards. They’re the ones that cause you to re-examine your particular view on a subject, the stories that sit with you for years to come.

Contrast this with a summer blockbuster. You might come out talking about how cool the explosions were and how many people got shot, but beyond that, there’s not a whole lot of meat to the story. It’s more an excuse for special effects than to tell a story.

Please don’t misinterpret this as me elevating one above the other. I think there’s a place for both, and I also believe that it’s possible to write a “commercial” novel in a “literary” way.

Language as an Artform

For me, language is the art of writing.

Anyone can tell a story. We all have the friend who loves to tell them, but we never enjoy listening to them. It takes a special talent to tell a story in such a way that people want to listen to it, that they remember it years later, that they re-think to a point where they ultimately come back to listen to it again.

Say It the Best Way

In his essay “On Writing,” Raymond Carver insists that, “It’s possible, in a poem or a short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring—with immense, even startling power. It is possible to write a line of seemingly innocuous dialogue and have it send a chill along the reader’s spine—the source of artistic-delight, as Nabokov would have it. That’s the kind of writing that most interests me.”

Me too, Ray. Me too.

He continues on later to say, “That’s all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones, with the punctuation in the right places so that they can best say what they are meant to say.”

Don’t Try Too Hard to Find the Right Word

Stephen King, in his autobiography/craft book On Writing, encourages writers not to make an effort to increase their vocabulary. The idea is that if we are actively trying to find a word to adequately express what we’re trying to say, we may try too hard, and we run the risk of using an uncommon word that doesn’t fit the rest of the work, or worse, is distracting to the reader. These types of linguist reaches end up sounding pretentious, and can put a reader off.

Who the Language Comes From

I go back to Raymond Carver. Many of his early stories are comprised of very simple language and descriptions, but they are some of the most powerful stories I’ve read. The language is simple because the characters are simple, often poorly educated, and struggling to make ends meet. Regardless, the emotional impact is not lessened by a smaller, more precise vocabulary. If your character is well educated, it often opens up the vocabulary you can use in your narrative, because, ultimately, your language must come from your protagonist, not from the author.

Live Fully to Write Fully

Lastly, don’t forget the importance of imagery—describing the natural world – even our thoughts and feelings – in context of our five senses. They are how we experience the world, and thereby are the way we must experience fiction. Far too many beginning writers forget this – or fall into the trap of clichés. They describe things how they’ve heard them described, or read them described. There is only one cure for this: To live and experience.

It’s really difficult to write about a lake unless you’ve been to one. Unless you’ve been on the green water on a yellow kayak. Or you’ve felt the warmth of the murky green water splattering your shorts as you rowed to the trunk of the fallen tree that dives beneath the still water until you can no longer see the moss growing in the grooves of the bark

Use Your Senses

To write about life, you must live life with your eyes and ears open. You must appreciate every revolting smell as an opportunity to widen your stable of aromatic descriptions. Savor your meals and try to adequately describe the different ingredients that went into the dish. You must let your fingers linger on the surfaces of the important things in your life—the cracked and worn leather your favorite chair, the flippant satin of a lemon window curtain parachuting in the breeze, the cold silver tines of wedding silverware, the peppered roughness of a stone you discovered as a child, the flawless finish of your wife’s pearl earring.

The language of your fiction is directly proportionate to the power of observation. Do not be content to simply waddle through life. We must all, as Thoreau said, “Live life deliberately.” And then we must write deliberately. Language is ours for the loving and leveraging. It is arguably the most important tool in our writer’s toolbox.

Remember: simple, precise language is seldom simple to write. Roll up your sleeves and wrestle with it for a bit. In so doing, you will get to know it more intimately, and better know it’s tricks and how to master it.

Until next month, good writing.

What’s one way you could woo your reader with the language in your manuscript? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

In addition to being a loving father and husband, Aaron Gansky is an award-winning novelist and author, teacher, and podcast host. In 2009, he earned his M.F.A in Fiction at the prestigious Antioch University of Los Angeles, one of the top five low-residency writing schools in the nation. Prior to that, he attained his Bachelor of Arts degree in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing from California State University of San Bernardino. He lives in quiet little town in the high desert of southern California with his family.