The Art of Wordsmiths: A Difference Of Intent

Whenever people find out that I'm a writer, it's reliable that there will be at least one, and often several, eventual reactions. The first thing noticed is that they're suddenly self-conscious about spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. I usually laugh kindheartedly and tell them to relax. The next reactions are more obvious. While many seem to think of writing as some sort of holy mystical thing, and give you a new degree of respect, others will rush to inform you that they, too are writers, and working on a novel (as they have been for the past ten years, without completion.) Other reactions vary, but it's a safe bet that they won't just nod and keep on going.

The fact is, if you're reading this now, the overwhelming likelihood is that you're a writer as well. We all learn to write as a means of communicating. The big difference is that of intent. While most simply mean to encode spoken word into characters, a writer intends to communicate more than just the raw thought itself. Writers pick and choose words, intentionally forming a specific image, feeling and subtext. When a particular word isn't readily available to us (perhaps because it has already been used before within the sentence or paragraph,) we find other choices. Most of us had a dictionary and thesaurus at our side at one time. Some of us still do. The lexicons facilitate the substitution, helping us find an apt, or perhaps even richer, replacement. Non-writers just repeat the same term. They don't really notice the redundancy, and couldn't be bothered if they do.

For example, my Handle, the term "SpectreWriter", has been created because Ghostwriter was already thoroughly taken and exhausted by the time I began developing a professional website. The word did not exist, Wordsmith was already being worn far too thin, so I coined SpectreWriter. In making a namestyle, I took the liberty of capitalizing the latter half of the concoction to emphasize that it was two terms.

All of this over a word? Yes, exactly. Van Gogh went through considerably more trouble in choosing a particular shade of blue and deciding where to, and not to place it. In that lies the art and the artist's loving hand. When he's waxing poetic or artistic, a writer is no less careful, and no less an artist, than a painter or composer.

When most people write about a tree they bought, they proclaim that they've purchased a Mulberry tree, for example, and leave it at that. When a writer describes the same event, he speaks of purchasing and planting a sapling, placing it in precisely the right location, of imagining it growing tall and sprawling, of pruning it as it grows, shaping it so that one can see the wide green leaves in one's mind's eye, imagine resting beneath the shade it will one day provide.. and then being drawn back to the thin wisp of a stick now taking root in the front yard.

What is the difference? The average person intends to express, to get it onto the paper (or out of his mouth) as quickly as possible. The writer takes the time to savor the words and images presented, elaborating on them, speculating, wrapping the reader up in those potentials. The average person who is typing is after a quickie. A writer performs a seduction, makes love to both words and readers, pours life and affection into each small gesture, every word choice -- sometimes repeatedly. So you see, it's only a difference of intent.