In Write Vibrant Fiction and Choose the Right Word fiction writers were taught the difference between the Anglo Saxon form of common English words, and the Latinate form.
Write Exciting Fiction: Choose Anglo Saxon Based Words
Anglo Saxon words are visual and direct. Anglo Saxon words have an immediacy and vibrancy that draws pictures in the reader’s head and engages him or her in the story. They evoke an emotional response in the reader. Anglo Saxon is the language of storytelling as it creates pictures in the reader’s mind, and involves their emotions.
Formal Writing: Choose Latinate Based Words
Latin is the language of formal writing, used to impart information. Latinate words are indirect and obfuscating, as they do not create pictures in the reader’s mind, or easily stir up emotions. This is useful when the writer wishes to be impartial, and to keep an issue unemotional. For example, in legal judgements the judge needs to show that he has been impartial.
Politicians Choose Latinate Based Words
Politicians and others who have something to hide frequently choose Latinate based words as a way of concealing the facts or of keeping the emotions dampened. Eg. A politician might say: The insurrectionists were incarcerated in a detention centre, when in Anglo Saxonate language he would say, The rebels were thrown into jail.
Choose Words that Bring your Writing Alive
However, emotionally dampened writing is not helpful when writing fiction, as the writer wants the reader to become emotionally involved in the story, and to be entertained.
Keep Your Fiction Writing Simple
A basic rule of good fiction writing is to keep your vocabulary simple. This means choosing the vivid, strong Anglo Saxon version of a word, rather than the more formal Latinate version.Eg.
- Anglo Saxon will have ‘tell,’ Latin will have ‘relate.’
- Anglo Saxon will have worried, Latin perplexed,
- Anglo Saxon’s simple talk will become the complicated Latin converse, and
- Walk becomes the ridiculous perambulate.
- In its extreme forms, used by people who wish to play down the severity of something, kill becomes exterminate.
When to Use Latinate Words in Fiction
- A pedantic and fussy character, or one who is emotionally distant is likely to choose Latinate words in everyday speech. His or her dialogue would be formal and Latinate language would be appropriate.
- A teenage character, who was trying to impress an adult or his peers is very likely to use long complicated words instead of simple ones. This is also true of an adult who feels insecure about his or her background and level of education, and who is trying to make a good impression.
- A character who is out of touch with his or her feelings, or who is trying to hide something might well choose to speak in Latinate language.
Use Latinate language as a contrast to more relaxed writing, and as a way to build an overly-formal or insecure character.
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