I haven’t done many posts on the art of writing itself recently, so I decided to post about something I genuinely love about writing: Portraying emotions through fantasy characters, and in doing so connect to the reader so they can live the emotions through said characters.

It’s magical, isn’t it? Being able to put words on paper that could effect someone’s life so greatly just by reading them later?

It may not be as easy as it sounds, though… moving someone with your writing. But there are some key ways to make your writing more powerful, and in doing so make your readers fall in love with it.

What I’ll be going over in this post specifically is

Powerful language.

‘Powerful language’ can mean a lot of things. Using words that normally wouldn’t be used in a certain situation is a type of powerful language. It’s fresh and exciting to the reader, and shows that you are different from other writers. Also, the use of over exaggeration is another good use of powerful language.

Let me show you both of these examples in writing so you can see what I mean.

My vision frays as Yvette’s words tear through my head, whispering in the deepest parts of my consciousness and exploding through my memories, uniting the disconnected events into one seamless idea. It makes little to no sense, yet it is everything, and suddenly I’m collapsing to the tiled floor, mumbling incoherently.

First, notice the line ‘my vision frays.‘ The speaker’s vision didn’t become blurry, it didn’t spot, it didn’t go black, it frayed. This is an example of using unique words to describe something that would normally be described with overused words.

Then, ‘tear through my head’ and ‘exploding through my memories.’ Use strong words to show how your character feels. Even thoughts can be loud when you’re confused or surprised, so use your language to illustrate this notion to your readers.

Another good use of powerful language is figurative speech, which you’ve no doubt heard of. In the sample I gave, this line is a good example of figurative speech: ‘…uniting the disconnected events into one seamless idea…’.

Did the speaker’s thoughts literally connect this way?

Probably not. I mean, I’d hate stray from the subject and get scientific, so let’s just say that the literal process would be a bit different.

I could have just said ‘it all came together.’ But instead, I replaced that phrase with something that readers might not have heard before.

One more example of powerful language.

Do you remember in the sample paragraph how the speaker ‘collapsed?’ This may seem like a small thing to point out, but think for a moment.

What’s more powerful?

‘Suddenly I’m falling on the tiled floor,’ or ‘suddenly I’m collapsing on the tiled floor’?

Sometimes small word replacements can change the feel of a whole section.

—————————————————-

That’s all for now, because sadly I have a lot of work to do… (see my post about writing a book in TWO MONTHS if you haven’t already…), so I’m off to try and get some things checked off of my to-do list. I hope that this post was helpful or inspiring.

Happy writing!