Constant Connotation

Constant Connotation

Hello everyone! Today we’ll be learning about something you’ve heard me talk about alot. Diction is a concept that is simple to understand but difficult to master. At its base diction is simply your vocabulary, but in depth and practice it is far more than such. If I had to choose one lesson that is the most important, learning diction is by far the most essential skill for a writer to have. Any five year old can tell a story, make up a character, or describe two people hitting each other. Don’t believe me? Next time you meet a child, be it your own or one you know, ask them to tell you a story, and you’ll see what I mean.

Diction is vital because it helps expand our Connotative Vocabulary. You’re probably wondering why that’s in italics. It’s because connotative vocabulary is just that important to maintain, and similarly to learning math, it builds upon itself. So what’s the difference between connotative vocabulary and just plain old...well, vocabulary.

Simple concept, difficult practice: Connotation is an implied meaning of a word, thus connotative vocabulary is the collection of implied meanings of words known by a person. Inversely, typical vocabulary can also be called literal vocabulary which consists of the literal definition of the word. Sound easy so far? Good, because it’s about to get a bit more complicated than that.

If you’re a little shaky on the idea of connotation, we’ll put it like this: certain words when used have a negative or positive feeling or emotion that is attached to them. These emotions are connotation, and when you’re a writer, selecting the proper connotation is absolutely vital for setting a scene’s mood and tone. If you look back on all of my posts, I guarantee you, at least somewhere in every one, it’s recommended that you expand your word usage. This is because connotation is what separates the authors from the five year olds.

Let’s take a look at one of the most common words in need of connotation: “said”. You’ll often hear English teachers tell students to never use the word “said” because it is a boring word, and a dead word. Now I won’t say never use it, but most certainly when you’re a starting writer, learning to replace “said” with a better word is lesson number one.

“Said” is the past tense and past participle of the word “say”, which is defined as “To utter words so as to convey information, an opinion, a feeling or intention, or an instruction.” In layman’s terms, it’s to speak. “Say” and thus, “said” are very neutral words. They don’t really present any connotation in the sense that they don’t elicit particular emotions.

Contrarily, look at the words: hissed, growled, roared, screamed, shouted, hollered, bellowed, boomed, screeched, grumbled. Each one can be considered a literal synonym of “said” but, you’ll notice that all of them have a negative connotation. Now, that’s not to say they always have a negative connotation. Connotation changes with context. Depending on what an author writes, the words can be negative or positive. Take “roared” specifically. If your boss is roaring at you, it’s different than if you’re standing on stage and can hear the roar of the crowd. Same word, different context.

“Okay, I get it now. So words like laughed, grinned, teased, joked, chuckled, giggled, smiled, beamed, etc. are all positive connotation?” Right! Except that they also can have a negative connotation. It may be difficult to find it, but think of the Joker from Batman. When he’s laughing, chances are, no one else is. It all is applied to context.

So you may think you’ve connotation down now, well the answer to that is...no. Sorry to say, that’s only scratching the bare minimum surface of what connotation is all about. If you have ever read the book Frindle by Andrew Clements, you’ll understand that the meaning of words rests solely on the people. If you haven’t read the book, the basic plot is that a boy, eager to shake up the system, convinces all of his friends to start calling pens, ‘frindles’. Then, like a virus, it spreads until the entire world has rejected the word ‘pen’ and now calls them ‘frindle’. Why is this important? Well it shows that the definition of a word, literal and connotative is determined solely by the people as a whole. That’s right, vocabulary is more universal and less corrupt than the government. Hard to believe, right?

This power, as Uncle Ben would say, comes with a great responsibility, specifically for writers. That responsibility is to not screw it up. Do not butcher the Queen’s English, so to speak. As a writer, whether you want to admit it or not, we answer to the people. If people don’t like what you have to say, surprise, they’re not going to buy your book or what have you. The fastest way to lose their attention is to incorrectly use connotation, or worse (as it sends skilled writers screaming from their beds in their nightmares) using no connotation at all (i.e. “Said”).

Connotation requires a good knowledge of a word, including some complex aspects of it: etymology, literal definition, and sometimes, even careful thought and interpretation. Let’s take an example. Most of you have probably not heard the word “simper”. It’s not too common, and at its core means ‘to smile’. But simpering is not just smiling, it is much more than that. Specifically, when a person simpers, they’re smiling in a way that is ungenuine, typically to gain the trust of someone through acting coy or lustful. Girl walks up to the bar, flirts with you a bit, gets a drink from you and then leaves. Chances are, that smile you saw on her face as she talked to you was her simpering. See what I mean?

-raises hand- “Can’t we just use the thesaurus?” NO! One of the most frustrating things I typically have to dissuade my students from is the concept that words provided by a thesaurus are completely interchangeable. They are not, so if you have it in your head from our flawed education system that they are, stop it. Get it out, put it in a trash can, douse it with gasoline, and set it on fire. Now, I’m not calling the thesaurus useless. On the contrary, they can be an incredibly useful tool...when used with a dictionary.

See, synonyms aren’t exact replicas of a word. That’d be stupid. Why would we have two words that mean the exact same thing, even if they’re completely different? There’d be no point! Now there are some words that when observed vaguely have the same meaning, but we’re writers: we don’t do vague. We do the specific. We don’t want our readers to feel whatever they want when reading our work, because that leads them to the feeling of boredom. As writers, our duty is show them what to feel and where.

By combining the use of a dictionary and a thesaurus, (assuming you have good versions of both) you’ll be able to line up context, literal definition, and connotation to gain: -triumphant fanfare- the connotative definition.

The connotative definition is the literary sweet spot of vocabulary. It means you know when and where a word should be used, and when someone uses it incorrectly, you’ll frown and shake your head in pity. A word to the wise: improving your connotative definition will make you a much better writer...it will also make you a super picky reader. Books you’ve loved will suddenly lower in quality, and books you’ve hated...well you’ll wonder what the heck happened and why they can get published but not you.

I’ve said before that the key to being a better writer is to practice it every day, well this is what you practice! You have to learn new connotations all the time, and you have to learn where the pieces fit and how. Believe me, this is tough work. There are times where you will know the connotation, but if someone were to ask you, you’ll have to kind of pause and think for a moment to come up with a way to explain it.

Let’s look at a simple word: ‘hissed’. We all know, at a core, what a hiss is. It’s a noise made by some animals to denote unhappiness, be it a cat, snake, cockroach, what have you. However, when used in context with a person’s speech, it usually means to say it quietly, often (but not always) through gritted teeth and in an angry or commanding tone. That’s something of a mouthful isn’t it?

Now, you all knew that. You know people (and animals) don’t hiss when they’re happy or laid back. No one writes, “‘Hey bro, let’s get some drinks by the pool,’ he hissed.” It wouldn’t make any sense, because the connotation and context are off. But when you read the words, you can almost imagine a person, a scowl on their face, teeth grit grabbing some guy and hissing those words to him. It’s an odd sight and experience, and it’s the best way to realize how things fit contextually. If you’re using a word, try to imagine what you want your character or scene to look like.

However, there’s an unseen danger with connotation. I’m guilty of it often, as are many others: we pick favorites. For example, I greatly enjoy the words gently and softly. If you take a look back to A Boy and His Fox, you’ll find the words are used...a lot. Even now, I have to pause and remind myself that perhaps while in my head the character is performing an action gently or softly, it may not be the best time to inform the audience of that, because some contexts speak for themselves.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Glad you asked. One of the most helpful tools in our box is adverbs. Adjectives that are used to describe actions. It can also be one of the most redundant. If someone’s shouting something, you don’t need to say they’re shouting loudly. By literal and connotative definition, shouting is loud. However, if you’re looking to put more ‘umph’ behind it, you could say ‘shouting as loudly as possible’. Now we kind of nod our heads and go ‘Okay, so it’s not just him shouting, but it’s him going as loud as he possibly can go.’ See? Less redundant, better explanation.

Now, sometimes things don’t need connotation. Remember what I said about ‘said’ still having a place? Well this is that place. Let’s look at this conversation, without dialogue tags.

“Hey, what do you want to grab to eat?”

“Whatever’s fine.”

Now, let’s try adding a dialogue tag to both of them.

“Hey, what do you want to grab to eat?” he asked.

“Whatever’s fine,” she said.

So now, since her response was not meant to be neither positive nor negative, using said is helpful. Said is a neutral word, and thus it provides a very important and helpful function when combined with adverbs. It allows us to cheat our way through connotation. “What?! We get to cheat?” Yes, but keep it under your hat. It’s a bit of a trade secret, see? So, shush.

What I mean by that is, if you have a particular idea in mind of how you want something to play out, but you don’t know a good word to use that sets that idea you’re aiming for said can help you lay the foundation to describe what you mean.

For example, a while back I was having a conversation with someone. I asked them for a good word to use when someone is saying something calmly, but you can tell that beneath it is a barely contained rage. The character is literally at their last straw, and instead of getting into a shouting match, they’re counting to ten, holding their breath, and putting a leash on their emotions in order to make a last ditch attempt to end the disagreement, knowing that they’re one stupid comment away from having their brain snap like a twig, and possibly committing homicide. For the record, the word we eventually found by definition is ‘seethed’, but the point is, if I couldn’t have found a good word for that, I could have just as easily used a dialogue tag like “she said calmly, the rage she was struggling to hold back just a breath away from boiling out.” See?

Bear in mind, do not overuse this ‘cheat’. If you do, your audience will catch on, quickly become bored, and toss your book out the window. On the other hand, if the word you use is too uncommon, be careful selecting it, as (while knowing many words is impressive) your readers will not like having to overly think in order to put the pieces together. You have to give them the picture on the box if you want them to solve the puzzle, get it?

Okay, so now you guys are kind of starting to accept all this mumbo jumbo. Connotation is essential, so learning it is good, but like all things, it is to be used in moderation and correctly. There’s no harm in knowing off the wall connotation (i.e. simper, I just love that word) but save it for impressing people in rare instances, not as a constant party trick like your friend Steve who loves to show off how he can open a bottle with his belly button. It gets old. Using adverbs can alter connotation or allow the explaining of a connotation when you can’t find a word for it.

Now, one of the things that made me popular when I first started writing fan fiction is my upload speed. We’re talking two, possibly even three chapters in a single day, each one around 4,000 words long. The most common question that I get is “What’s your secret?” and typically I give an answer like “It just sort of comes pouring out.” Now while that’s true, there is a secret behind it, and this -waves hand at the entire post-, this is it!

More connotation vocabulary means less time deciding on words you should use, less worrying about wording for context, less thinking how best to say what you want, because with connotation vocabulary you can already KNOW the best way to say what you want. Past that, it’s all a matter of 1) rereading your own work to find holes in clarity, 2) using the thesaurus AND dictionary to learn new possibilities for contextual situations, and 3) practicing putting them in the right place in the correct manner.

Every single day (save weekends, typically) I write at the very least, 5000 words a day. That’s an entire chapter, and while I’m not saying you have to write that much, writing every day is the best way to help build up your skill with context and connotation. When you write more often, you’ll find yourselves in different contexts with which to learn different connotations.

Now, for the writing exercise. Take the following words: said, get, and went. Then come up with ten synonyms for each and write your own connotative meaning for those synonyms. Bonus points if you can craft a sentence with it. I’ll provide an example for each.

Said: state - to say audibly in such a manner that is formal or straight to the point, typically for the sake of providing information or declaring a stance. “Mr. President, I am not going to do battle with these aliens,” the general stated.

Get: fetch - to collect an object at variable distances, only to return it to the location from which the collector started from. I often throw my dog’s toy, but he never shows an interest in fetching it.

Went: walk - to move or guide, on foot, at a casual pace that indicates the subject is neither in a hurry, nor is ceasing its progress. Having come to a steep hill, I climbed off my bike to walk it the rest of the way.

Now you guys try. Don’t go completely bonkers on this assignment and starting finding crazy words that are never used in daily conversation. The value of this prompt is to find an in-depth connotative definition for synonyms that can replace often overused words.

As always, I wish you the best of luck in life and literature,

Kiba