The diction you use in your writing is a choice you’re always making, whether subconsciously or not. Writers trade in language. Diction is about your choice of words. It’s one thing to say a dish is delicious, another to say it’s scrumptious, or mouth-watering or yummy. Your diction helps set the tone for the context of your story, and the genre to appeal to your intended audience.
To better understand diction and how you can improve the effectiveness of your word choices, in this article I’ll take a look at how your approach naturally evolves, and how you can be intentional with your language, especially when it comes to your characters. Finally, I’ll give you a Story Weapon to explore your own diction options.
Diction is your choice of words that shapes tone, rhythm, and character voice, influencing how readers experience your story. By reading widely, revising thoughtfully, and letting characters’ perspectives guide your language choices, you can develop a more authentic and expressive narrative voice.
How to approach diction
“You don’t want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and association, with beauty and power.”
– Rufus Choate
There is a natural diction to your own voice and your narrative voice. The way we speak and write is, as Rufus Choate suggests in the quote above, a product of what we consume.
When we read a lot of literature, we’re exposed to different sentence structures and inventive turns of phrase. Those leak out into our daily speech. Likewise, when we watch a lot of the news or television, we tend to mirror those speaking patterns over time. Even children pick this up as they might start to mimic Bluey’s Aussie accent, or Peppa Pig.
Then, when we finally turn to fill the blank page, we’re often looking for a flow state, when word choice is not a conscious decision at all.
So how can you guide your diction if you’re hoping to let the words pour out of you?
1) Be mindful of your language diet throughout the day. A bit of poetry consumed on coffee breaks or in the afternoon lull at work, can do wonders for your natural flow.
2) You can also choose to let diction be an editorial labor, rather than something to consider as you write your first draft. It’s ok (imperative!) if your first draft is full of words you’ll later replace. You’re still exploring your story at this stage. You can hone in later to improve the quality of your prose.
The music of diction
It can be helpful to think of language in terms of music. The prose that we love is often closer to poetry, and the poetry we love is often only a step away from music itself.
“It’s not that dialogue sounds like music to me, it actually is music.
– Aaron Sorkin
Great writing has rhythm, cadence, and harmony. You choose when sentences are short and punchy. And you also choose when they’re long, and full of colorful descriptions (and parentheses). These are the ways in which the music of writing comes into play.
Try reading some of your work aloud. See if you like the way it sounds. Is the language crunchy and crisp? Does it flow off your tongue or tumble out? Does it fit the scene? You know what your favorite writing sounds like, and that can give you a frequency to which you tune your own sound.
Your characters dictate their diction
When you’re writing from the perspective of your characters, the way they think has to make sense for their respective voices. Diction is the main tool with which you differentiate one character’s voice from another.
Elizabeth Bennet, from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, chooses words differently than Huck Finn, from Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Even within the same text, the serious and tradition-honoring voice of Lord Dalinar Kholin naturally sounds very different from the slippery, naive diction of a young girl named Lift in The Stormlight Archives series.
What’s the extent of their education, and how much does their environment support different styles of speaking? Are they overly clever or terse? Do they know a lot of words, or do they say a lot with a limited vocabulary? Do they use slang or make up their own words?
Put down the thesaurus
It can be tempting to go over your drafts with a thesaurus, but resist the temptation. Unless your character is the type to own a few thesauruses, you likely won’t do much good picking words far outside your own vocabulary. You don’t need to call a character “maladroit” when “clumsy” fits the bill.
Instead, imagine reading the narration to someone the same age as your character or from the same background. Would they understand it all and would they feel at home with the language? How would Huck Finn tell a friend about his adventures?
Finding your own voice
The diction of first-time writers tends to be overwrought. We can all feel intimidated by the writers we aim to emulate. You might think, They’re just deeper or better educated. They have some sort of gift that I don’t. The distance between our writing and the way we want to write can make us do funny things. Sometimes, attempting to lift your writing or change it by picking different words can hamstring your voice. After all, it doesn’t sound like you. It sounds like who you think you should be.
The only way out is through
Developing your voice can take time and many, many drafts that no one but you should bother to read. It’s only after muddling through some writing that doesn’t sound at all like you, but sounds like someone else, that you will stumble into a piece of writing that has a new inflection. This new tone is your voice and you’ll know it when you hear it. This is put well by Ray Bradbury in Zen and the Art of Writing:
I hasten to add here that imitation is natural and necessary to the beginning writer. In the preparatory years, a writer must select that field where [they think their] ideas will develop comfortably. If [their] nature in any way resembles the Hemingway philosophy, it is correct that [they] will imitate Hemingway. If Lawrence is [their] hero, a period of imitating Lawrence will follow. If the westerns of Eugene Manlove Rhodes are an influence, it will show in the writer’s work. Work and imitation go together in the process of learning. It is only when imitation outruns its natural function that a [writer] prevents [their] becoming truly creative. Some writers will take years, some a few months, before they come upon the truly original story in themselves.
Your story weapon: Experiment with different styles of diction
Like all literary devices, diction is there to serve your story and serve your development as a writer. It’s an opportunity to experiment and an avenue for growth.
While you’re writing your next piece, accept the invitation to try on different hats. If you’re narrating from the perspective of a few characters, take big swings with their voices. Make the jock sound like a jock, and let the egghead sound like an egghead. Let yourself feel a little silly as you find your own voice through them.
When it comes to diction and aligning your diction with your voice, it comes down to a very simple rule: pick the words you like and go from there.
Need more help finding your voice and expressing it on the page? Come join one of my workshops and find out more about the writing tools available to you: The 90-Day Novel, The 90-Day Memoir, Story Day
