100 ways to improve your writing - Gary Provost 2019

Use specific nouns
Twelve ways to give your words power

Good writing requires the use of strong nouns. A strong noun is one that is precise and densely packed with information.

Be on the lookout for adjectives that are doing work that could be done by the noun. Adjectives do for nouns what adverbs do for verbs; that is, they identify some distinctive feature. They tell you what color the noun is, how it’s shaped, what size it came in, or how fast it moved. Adjectives do great work when they are needed. But they are too often brought in when they are not needed. The careless writer drags them in to provide information that would be more interesting if it came directly from the noun. (Who would you prefer to meet—George Clooney or a guy who knows George Clooney?)

Before you write a noun that is modified by one or two adjectives, ask yourself if there is a noun that can convey the same information. Instead of writing about a black dog, maybe you want to write about a Doberman. Do you want to write large house, or is mansion really to the point? And before you put down cruel treatment, ask if you can make a greater impression on the reader with savagery, barbarity, or brutality.

Read these two sentences:

A man just walked into the room.

A priest just walked into the room.

Were you a little more interested when I told you the man was a priest? That’s because he became more specific, and you could see him better. Whether I had told you that a senator, a trash collector, or a Lithuanian had entered the room, you still would have found him more interesting than a mere man.

Specific nouns have power. In fact, I recently bought a book because of a specific noun. The name of the book is The Last Good Kiss by James Crumley, and I plunked down my money after reading Crumley’s opening sentence. Read it yourself and see if the same specific noun that forced me to part with my money grabs you.

When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Foreball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon.

What specific noun hooked me? Bulldog. If Trahearne had been drinking with an alcoholic dog, I might not have bought the book. But the specificity of bulldog brought into focus not only the dog but also the bar, the beer, and the fine spring afternoon. Why? Because by telling me what kind of dog it was that drank with Trahearne, the narrator convinced me that he had actually seen the dog. I believed the author’s words.

When you take out a general word and put in a specific one, you usually improve your writing. But when you use a specific word, readers assume you are trying to tell them something, so make sure you choose the specific word that delivers the message you want delivered. If your character is driving a car down the highway and you change it to a Jaguar, you increase interest, but you also characterize the driver. You build connotations of money and speed. So make sure you choose a car that is consistent with all the other messages you are trying to send the reader.