One of the reasons I’m a relatively slow writer is the same reason I’m a relatively slow reader: I can’t stop myself from listening to the music of the words.
It’s rare for me to have a writing session when I don’t stop myself to consider the tone and nuance of a word choice or sentence at least once or twice. Sometimes it’s a matter of whether a word matches the character’s voice, but it can be even more esoteric than that.
Here are a few recent examples.
Etymology as atmosphere
Can I use “dreamt” and “dreamed” in the same work? They feel nuanced to me.
These words have a different register and a different rhythm. Maybe part of it is the “phonetic age” of the word (dreamt is older) so to me, it has a slightly mythical flavor.
I decided that yes, I could use both. I don’t know what validation I might find for it, but I use “dreamt” when I want it as a descriptive word (even if not as an adjective) and “dreamed” when I want to emphasize the verb.
Perception versus tone
Is there a noun form of “impending”? I want a single noun that conveyed the same threshold-feeling.
Sometimes the search for a missing word tells me a lot about what I’m trying to get across. Imminence is close, but that has such a formal, Latinate register and is more “factual” in tone. But threat carries too much doom.
In that case, realizing that I couldn’t find exactly the right word led me to change a few sentences so that I could build the right tone.
Convention constrains emotion
“Fixity” seems to always be used in a phrase (“fixity of [something]”) — does it have to be?”
I wanted the texture of “fixity”—more like tension than calm—but using it as a stand-alone noun felt a little awkward because it’s almost always used in the phrase. The word’s default usage seemed to constrain its emotional charge, so it sort of “resisted” use, but it was exactly the flavor I wanted.
I trip over this dynamic from time to time, where a word’s flavor gets diluted by some standard phrasing, and I have to negotiate between expectation and precision. My solution this time was to add an adjective, because the rhythm of the sentence then disrupts the expected phrase.
I ended up with: “She was ignoring everything around her, and that was not discipline but an unnerving fixity.”
✿ ✿ ✿
Readers may never notice the individual words, but for me, this is where the “music” of writing lives—grammar is the structure, but word choices are where rhythm, melody, and meaning come together.
