Don't Write a Thesaurus

Now, I want to talk to you all about writing with fancy words.

Sometimes we think that it's impressive or more descriptive when we use words like "flaccid" or "coruscation" in our writing.

But I have one thing to say today.

Simple words are underrated.

Often times, people will tell you not to use words like "glad", "large", "small", "round"—basically anything simple like that—because they're overused.

But do you know what?

They're overused for a reason.

They're easy to understand and everyone (generally) knows what they mean. They also tend to flow better with sentences. Rather than saying "The grandiose flower atop her hat", saying "the large flower atop her hat" sounds more realistic. Chances are, you'd have to look up "grandiose" to know exactly what it means, even though you can get a pretty good idea of it just by the pronunciation. And usually, people don't go around saying, "Oh my, look how grandiose that is!"

In that situation, I feel like using the word "large" just fits better in that sentence.

Simple words are not bad to use. They make the writing easier to understand most times.

Now, there are times where fancy words can work well in the sentence. For example, I quite like the word "exorbitant" which also means "large". I might use that in a book I write.

But I'm not going to fill my book with words like "exorbitant" because it will start to sound too rehearsed and unrealistic.

That brings us to our main point.

Don't make your book into a Thesaurus.

Sometimes it's fun to use fancy words that mean exactly what you need them to mean. It can also be useful to descriptions at times.

But one of the biggest turn-offs to reading a book can be just that: if you use so many fancy words that your book starts to sound like a thesaurus. For example, if instead of "happy", you use "jubilant", or instead of "large" you use "grandiose".

I am all for synonyms that prevent us from using the same word over and over and over again in our books, but your reader didn't come to your book to learn a whole new vocabulary. And chances are, your reader doesn't have a Webster's dictionary sitting right next to them.

If a book that is not written in the 1800s has an excessive use of words such as "cacoethes", "obfuscate", "sobriquet", or "oblivescence"—congrats if you pronounced those correctly—chances are your reader is going to shut it and move on. After all, they didn't read it for a vocabulary lesson.

Fancy words can be distracting.

Complex, English words that your average American probably doesn't know can be very distracting if constantly put into literature.

Think about it.

If you're reading and you keep running into words you don't know, you have to either stop and look at the context and then try to guess the word, or look it up. It may be educational to learn new words, but if you have to continuously do that throughout your book, it just bogs down the writing.

It's one thing if you're writing a historical fiction piece and at that time, people had a lot broader vocabulary. But in your classic, 21st century fiction, try and make it simple.

Make it understandable for your readers.

If you're trying to avoid using certain words a lot, try to use words that people tend to know such as "exquisite" or "stunning" for "beautiful", and "rancid" or "revolting" in place of "stinky". These work a lot better than using "pulchritudinous" in place of "beautiful" and "putrefactive" in place of "stinky".

I think we can all agree nobody knew what "pulchritudinous" meant before this blog post. You probably didn't even know it was a word in the English language. But if you did, congratulations. You have the vocabulary of an educated person from the 1800s.

Adding in a complex word here or there is okay.

I'm not saying don't use fancy words at all. I'm saying use them sparingly if you are planning to use them. If you've just found the perfect word that means exactly what you want it to mean, use it.

It can also be beneficial to learn a few new words sometimes. Everyone has their own vocabulary. Some people know more words than others, and it's always great to learn new words.

Just make sure you're not continuously writing with a 19th century vocabulary in a 21st century book.

It's when our book starts to sound like a thesaurus that we have a problem.

Hope you all learned something today! If you have any questions, just message me in the contact box below.

Happy writing!

-Jocelyn