More from the
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philomytha wanted me to talk about composing prose and choosing words and images, which first of all is a topic large enough for a book, and secondly something I find tough to analyze - writing about the process of writing, so difficult! - but I can probably manage some random thoughts.
I suppose insofar as one is choosing which words to use, which images to project, which themes to wrap it all around, there's head-choice and gut-choice, or decision and instinct if you want to put it that way. In my best writing, I use both, not usually simultaneously but in either order: gut doesn't always precede head. So there's conscious searching for the right words, and serendipitous finding, which is less likely to come at the word level and more at the metaphorical level, and one can lead to the other. Quite often I spend time looking for a perfect word, and then that spurs a whole new train of thought (see, if I say "train" I am immediately running over tracks with occasional jolts and sways and constant rhythmic noises, not that I would use "train of thought" if I could think of an alternative, unless it was in dialogue, and then someone would make a railway pun).
Head-choice is easier to talk about. So, first of all, yes, I do use a thesaurus (online exclusively, now), and I am not in agreement with writing advice that suggests otherwise, although I understand why people say that. You need to know what the words you choose mean, not just pick the coolest-sounding one from a list. English is a ridiculous hotpot of a language, but you can't equate all the synonyms for a word even if it's a long list. Anyway, I mainly use a thesaurus because I'm old and my memory is cranky (actually it's been cranky in this way since I was 30 or so, so I can't blame aging), and sometimes I know the word I want perfectly well but can't get it to the front of my head for access (often because something that sounds a bit similar is blocking the way). But also I'm picky about not repeating words too often; it's a judgment call whether it looks absurd to use a series of synonyms in succeeding paragraphs, and sometimes hitting a word over and over contributes to the sound and rhythm of prose, but other times it feels sticky and boring (and yes, that's me talking about gut-choice: much more difficult to explain).
Because I write time travel fiction (otherwise known as not-quite-historical-fiction), and because I have deep pockets of nitpickiness, I try to choose words (for dialogue, at least) that are appropriate to the time and place - so, yeah, I did look up most of the relevant sections of TFT in the OED, or at least particular words I had questions about. I'm sure I left in some anachronisms, but overall I hope the language choices evoke something of the period. (Plenty of surprises along the way: in one place I wanted an 18th-century character to talk about catching someone on the rebound, and was astounded to find that, with a little variation, it was fine to do that. I suppose that might work against a sense of authenticity, but I couldn't resist leaving it in.) I was a little less picky for
Time and Fevers, because most of the period language is actually Dutch translated (in that miraculous novelistic fashion) into English, so I used vaguely 17th-century English but wasn't fussy about details (because, you see, the characters weren't really saying those words. If that makes any sense). Time travel lends a nice duality to all that, because I can have Olivia and George speaking period language to the people around them and then have them converse in more modern English when they're alone, and also let them react to period word choices (my favorite example is Halsey remarking to Olivia after a ride that "I wish I had the mounting of you, Miss Lake," meaning he wants to choose her horse, but, knowing Halsey, probably implying exactly what she first thinks he's saying. I stole that from Georgette Heyer, I believe).
The other thing I can touch on in without making this too long is what I talked about a bit yesterday, the carrying through of metaphors and thematic material, which is actually a bit
too easy for me, because I have a tendency to release the plug on metaphorical language and let it flow; I mean, whole paragraphs awash in various forms of liquid, and so forth. And I've found myself, in the last two books, crafting chapters that read a bit like short stories, with repeated thematic elements; I guess it's okay, as long as they don't isolate themselves from the rest of the book. It works great if I
am writing short stories (in my case, mostly fanfic). But driving a metaphor or image to its logical or illogical conclusion is one of my favorite things in writing, and when used judiciously it can be extremely valuable.
The best way to get into details of word choice and so forth is those DVD commentary things (which I have done
a few times before and am always happy to do again). It's hard to select the perfect example from an entire novel or set of novels, so I'm going to let my previous reference to deep pockets choose for me, and make remarks about two characteristic bits of prose from chapter 24 of
Time Goes By, under the cut.
( minor spoilers, I suppose )Anyway, that was fun, even if it describes my writing process insufficiently. I hope I scratched the surface of the question, which was a good one!
