Beware Abstract Nouns
Make it concrete, concrete, concrete
Like many writers on Medium, I want to improve my writing. I read a lot of books about writing. But it takes a while before any instruction or advice seeps into my prose.
In October, I wrote an article about filter verbs:
Four months later and I’m noticing and deleting the filter verbs when I edit. Once they were invisible, now they scream.
I once attended a talk by a writer whose name I forget. He introduced the idea of internal cohesion in writing; that everything —rhythm, word choice, syntax — should bend to the story or theme. Poetry has the highest internal cohesion. I’m still processing this idea; it’s parked in the back of my brain and I hope it will come to the fore soon.
He also introduced Latinate versus Anglo Saxon nouns.
Latinate nouns are usually multi-syllable and they tend to be far-reaching in meaning and therefore abstract. By contrast, Anglo Saxon nouns are usually one syllable and they are concrete and can be easily conjured by the senses.
