Tag: Language

The Round Peg in a Square Hole: No Words

I’m a writer. I don’t mean that I write for the public, though obviously I do. I mean that I express myself through the written word. I love the way words come together to depict complex ideas and emotions, the beauty in the way they flow. With my pen, I can think. Except when I can’t.

For a person with neurodiverse brains, self-expression is a constant challenge. When left alone, expression finds outlet in natural ways: sounds, movements, sensations, hyperfocused interests. But other people expect words. Not just any words, but specific combinations of words delivered in specific ways. There are no official rules, and different people expect different combinations. Different situations require different combinations.

You try to translate all your natural self-expression into words, but things don’t match. You can’t find a word that describes the feeling relieved by cocooning in a heavy blanket in ninety degree weather, or the surge of undirected energy prompting the need to hum a set musical phrase on repeat. The words other people direct toward you don’t make sense either; they are too flat somehow, or the sounds making up the words trigger responses that confuse and anger the speakers.

Living in a household full of neurodivergent brains has taught me a lot about communication. While words are still a huge part of our lives (seriously, they never seem to stop talking), we have to listen beneath the words to understand. Because sometimes there are no words, not for the real things we need to say.

As a word person in a non-word house, I have discovered a strange empathy with that deeper, wordless self-expression. The strength of it overwhelms until I must share it or drown, yet all I have is words. I try to write the feelings and ideas down in ways that other people can see their beauty. I try again and again, writing and erasing until my mind is as full of rips as the paper, but I cannot find the combination that others will understand. Suddenly there are no words left.

Listen to the notes. Dance with the motions. Oggle at the skill produced from hyperfocus. Buy the heavy blankets. Share the smiles and the tears and the squeals. Maybe you’ll find no words are needed.

Blog Thursday: Description

https://www.writingforward.com/storytelling/42-fiction-writing-tips-for-novelists

What image comes to mind when you hear the word “rock?” Now imagine a rough, mossy rock. If you were told the rock was in a forest, what would you see? Would your vision look different if you read that the rough, mossy rock protruded from the loam in the deep shadows cast by ancient oaks?

Description tends to get a bad rap these days, probably because inexperienced writers often try to describe everything in their world at once without context, forgetting that readers first need a reason to care about what they are seeing. In the process of combating such boredom, others sometimes run to the opposite extreme, insisting that descriptive modifiers should be eliminated. Effective description lies somewhere between the two extremes.

The easiest way to add descriptive words is the way we all learned them in grade school. “The fat white cat lived in the creepy old brown house.” It’s easy, and it communicates facts, but it doesn’t make me want to read more.

“Coconut lay sunning herself on the front step, her round belly white against the brown boards. Her ear flicked at the sound of slow steps on the walk, and her nose twitched. Peanut butter. It was the one called Penelope again, the one who never stayed on the sidewalk like the others.

“Coconut lazily opened one eye, the tip of her tail rising and falling like a long, slow breath. Penelope’s forehead wrinkled, and the tip of her pink tongue protruded through set teeth as she took another hesitant step forward, staring at the weathered door above Coconut’s step. The cat waited until Penelope put a hand on the splintering handrail, then yawned and lurched to a sitting position, wrapping her tail around her haunches and fixing the child with a green-eyed stare. Penelope swallowed loudly, but reached one hand toward Coconut’s head with a weak grin.

“This would never do; Coconut had an image to uphold. Creepy houses did not shelter friendly cats. She arched her back and leaped straight into the air with a yowl that set her own fur on end. Penelope jerked backwards, whimpered something unintelligible, and fled. Mission accomplished, Coconut smoothed her fur with a few well-placed licks and stretched back to full-length in the sun.”

There was nothing technically wrong with the single sentence, but only one of those descriptive modifiers really crossed over to engage the brain’s sensory interpretation. We don’t absorb true sensory information so concisely, instead collecting tidbits of information and compiling them into an impression of our surroundings. That impression then engages an emotional response, allowing us to respond appropriately (or inappropriately) to those surroundings.

The use or lack of descriptive modifiers is not a determining factor for good or bad fiction. Whether or not our descriptive language can be interpreted as sensory information is what matters. Can you picture a cat behaving the way Coconut did? Can you feel the aging wood under your fingertips? Does your pulse quicken with Penelope’s mixed reactions? Can someone live within your world?