Obfuscation, or elucidation?

Few things annoy publishers more than when a writer uses unnecessarily complex or arcane words when a much simpler word will do. Writers, especially those at the beginning of their career, love to use words which haven’t been seen since the beginning of the 18th Century, just to impress readers with their erudition.

Obviously, if your character is a professor of philosophy, he wouldn’t speak in monosyllabic grunts, so language has to fit the reason for the scene.

But difficult language used for the purpose of showing how knowledgeable the author is will invariably backfire. Good writers convey meaning simply and eloquently.

Two examples should suffice…

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Or simpler still…..

To be, or not to be; that is the question.

They don’t get much simpler than that….yet both sentences carry an encyclopaedia of meaning and nuance.

Of course, just because you’re writing to communicate, it doesn’t mean that the thoughts behind the words need to be simplistic. Complexity is carried in meaning, but not necessarily in vocabulary. Many will know Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, in which the reprobate Sydney Carton sacrifices himself because of his love for Lucie. His last words as he ascends the steps of the guillotine being…..

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

Simple, eloquent, and heartfelt, yet as a summation of a man’s judgement of himself moments before his death, it’s peerless.

It’s really tempting to over-bake a thought by loading adjective after adjective onto a noun, or directing a reader’s mind by applying an adverb to a sentence where the verb really should stand on its own two feet. But the best writers are storytellers….communicators….and it’s amazing how people’s attention wanders if they’re not engaged by sharp, clear and pertinent language and imagery.

Assuredly, unquestionably, unconditionally and indeed indubitedly, so!!!!!

One place where novice writers often overwrite, is in landscape and settings. Landscape doesn’t necessarily mean wheat fields or beaches with sunsets. It means the arena where the action takes place. Readers read fiction in order to find out what happens to the characters in which they’ve invested their time and effort. Yet so many beginners think that they have to write page after page describing the place, the roads in and out, the buildings, shops and offices, and where the carpet was manufactured in the room where the action happens.

This causes two problems for the reader! The first is that by investing so much time in describing the ‘where’ and not the ‘what’, the reader will think that the landscape is truly important to the action, whereas that’s rarely the case. And the second problem is that it deflects from the main theme of the book, diverts the reader’s mind from the characters, dulls the reading experience, and dilutes the intensity of the experience.

So…..keep it simple, but not simplistic, and let the characters speak for themselves.