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 Word Choice and Rhythm Your final drafts for WriteAtHome receive an assessment score that is determined by averaging scores between 1 and 5 in six assessment categories. These categories are: 1. content 2. structure 3. word choice 4. rhythm 5. style 6. mechanics This and the next lesson explore these categories and will help you to improve in each of them. Word Choice In one sense writing is all about word choice. What else is there to do when you write besides choose words to express your meaning? When we talk about word choice, however, we are referring to the care and skill you demonstrate in selecting exactly the right word in a given situation (This is also called diction). Let’s look at some ways to determine what makes a word the right word. 
Specificity Words should be specific and clearly defined. With nouns, for example, choose particular nouns rather than general nouns whenever possible. Instead of bug, use caterpillar or cockroach. Instead of rural area, say South Bumpkin, Alabama. Being specific in word choice helps you maintain clarity. The opposite of clarity is vagueness. Here’s an example involving a vague adjective: Vague: I could tell by the way Dad looked at me that he was upset. Clearer: I could tell by the way Dad looked at me that he was angry. The problem with the first sentence above is the word upset. This word could mean many things: worried, frightened, regretful, sorrowful, agitated, or confused for instance. Angry is a better word selection because it paints a clearer picture of Dad’s emotional state. 
Precision It is always important to be precise in your word choice. This can be challenging. Have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue (or if you were typing, on the tips of your fingers)? Have you ever given up on finding the precise word to settle for one that is “close enough?” © Copyright 2012
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close enough: The answer to your problem is obvious. precise: The solution to your problem is obvious. Problems have solutions, questions have answers, but if you are not concerned about precision, either word will do. Good writers, however, want to be clearly understood, so they make finding the right word a priority. Growing as a writer involves growing in your working vocabulary — the words you know well enough to use comfortably in your writing. As you gain facility with words, you will be more and more able to write with precision. 
Vividness The best words evoke images in the mind of the reader. They leap off the page, grab you by the collar, and make you pay attention. Vivid words can be simple, even ordinary, but they bring focus to the events, images and ideas you are trying to get across. bland: The big, white bird landed on the water. vivid: White and silent as an apparition, the swan descended onto the pond. 
Originality Good diction means that you are careful to avoid clichés — expressions that were once original and evocative, but have grown stale and flat with overuse. Sometimes it is difficult to avoid common phrasings and expressions (I even used one in the previous paragraph —“leap off the page”). But good word choice means finding new and creative ways to express your ideas. A recent student paper I read described an old man’s voice as “rusty.” The writer was able to use a word that was vivid and precise (Can’t you just hear a rusty voice?), and she succeeded in originality as well, using a word normally associated with color or texture to describe a sound. Focus on nouns and verbs as you write. These are the most important words you will choose no matter what you are writing. Do your best to maintain specificity, precision, vividness and originality, especially in your selection of nouns and verbs. Sound and Sense: The Rhythm of Writing There is a scene in the movie The Postman where Kevin Costner’s character, a mediocre actor, recites some lines from Shakespeare. Soon after, Costner gets beaten unconscious by some bad guy. He later wakes in a prison cell, nursed by a rough, uneducated fellow inmate who had observed the acting performance. “Say those words again,” the big lug pleads. Costner groggily repeats a few lines. When he finishes, the captivated inmate asks, “What does it mean?” Can you relate to that guy at all? Have you ever been attracted to words just for the sound they make? Have you ever been fascinated by a poem because you were © Copyright 2012
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drawn to the rhythm and beauty of the language – even if you weren’t sure what they mean? There’s a story of a foreign family who gave their daughter an English name because it was the most lovely sounding word they had ever heard. They named her Diarrhea. In one song, James Taylor sings, “It isn’t what she’s got to say, or how she thinks or where she’s been/To me the words are nice the way they sound./ I like to hear them best that way. It doesn’t much matter what they mean…” The sound of words is most important in poetry. That’s why poets so often employ sound devices like rhyme and rhythm, alliteration and onomatopoeia, but good prose writers are also very conscious of the way their sentences sound. When you write, pay attention to the sound of the words you choose. Listen for the rhythms of the sentences. Do your clauses and phrases flow easily and naturally onward? Is your writing pleasing to the ear? By the way, you’ll never know the answer to this if you don’t read your writing to yourself after you’ve finished. This is a vital step in the writing process that a surprising number of student writers leave out. Listen to your writing. Are all your sentences short and choppy? Are they all long and complex? Do you often repeat the same sentence structure? Is it easy to fall into the cadence of your words, or is it awkward to read? Look for ways to eliminate the distracting noises and turn your words into music. The best writers are usually avid readers. One reason is that lots of reading trains the ear to hear the way good writers write. Sometimes book‐loving writers can listen to their own words and just know it doesn’t sound right. Lots of reading develops an ear for the rhythm of language. Do you want to grow as a writer? Be a reader. Listen to the sound of the words as they come to you. Reading should involve the ear as well as the eye. Read the following passage aloud and listen to the rhythm the words create: The pair [of hawks] were still very high up, but as they drew closer to us, they began to descend in great lazy swoops down the invisible blue banisters of the air…The sunlight spilled soft auras around their splayed forms. We could see frayed feathers, translucent at the tips. Not once did either bird move a wing muscle. They held themselves perfectly steady, taut yet relaxed, angling against the air and gliding as if they were a part of it, just two molecules of the empty air made visible, turning in slow and beautiful spirals that meshed together and then away like gears, like a pair of ice skaters. One turned clockwise and the other counter, and gyring down and down they seemed to form the vortex of the day’s stillness. ~from The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason Did you notice how nice this paragraph sounds? Did you catch the alliteration and assonance (“invisible blue banisters,” “sunlight spilled soft,” “frayed feathers, translucent at the tips,” “angling against the air”)? Short sentences are balanced against longer ones. There is music in this writing that adds to the beauty of the picture it paints. © Copyright 2012
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Rhythm summary: “Good writing sounds good.” As you progress as a writer, pay increasing attention to the sound as well as the sense of your words. This is what your writing coach looks for in the rhythm category. © Copyright 2012
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