Specificity and Concrete Language | how to write vividly

hey guys it's Jalen and I'm here today with another video so today I'm following up on what I think was the last video assuming and posting these in the order that I think I'm gonna post them which was a video on show Don't Tell and I'm going to be talking about specificity so originally I had scripted these out to be one video I decided to split it in two to make it a little more digestible because Chantel and specificity are very related concept specificity is often a means to showing but they're not necessarily the same and as much as I talk about specificity I think I talked about it in every video like O'Shea Leland's talking about specificity fire is hot water is wet I've never actually made a video just on specificity on this channel this pairs very intrinsically with the show don't tell video so I will leave that in the cards and in the description if you want to check that out they're very related but today I'm gonna be talking specifically about youth in specific details cutting abstract or vague language and replace it with specificity and walking through a bit of a longer example but I also think it is and I've said this before and I kind of seen by it the key to good writing when I understood how to use specificity and it's not a very difficult concept like you guys will probably able to apply this if you're not already immediately like it's actually very easy to apply the quality of my writing shut up immediately because it's very easy to implement this and it really really does improve the richness and the uniqueness of your story it takes you story from something very bad and kind of not unoriginal but nonspecific to itself the main thing that you want to be on the lookout for in your writing is vague or abstract language so vague language are nonspecific words indefinite words and a lot of this time it's words with some or thing in them so things something sometimes somewhere these are very vague words they don't really tell us anything for example so I'm looking out of a computer we spent some time at the park how much time do you spend at the park like was it an hour was it 15 minutes was it five days like did you camp out there I have no idea based on this sentence I picked up some things at the store what things you could have picked up things needed to make a nice dinner or you could have picked up things to murder a man and hide bodies it was somewhat cold out how cold is some what exactly I have no idea this depends a lot on a personal opinion like maybe what I find cold is not cold at all for you if you live in Antarctica but maybe you live somewhere really warm I'm Canadian maybe what I find kind of warm in a nice day is Freeling for you like this is so indefinite we really have no idea so you really want to be on the lookout for these kinds of weak vague words and really only use these kinds of words very intentionally but if you can specify more you really want to be on the lookout for these bad words so that's the first thing to look for when being more specific the other thing to look for is abstract language unlike vague words which we don't know what it's referring to with an abstract word we do know what it's referring to but it has no sensory appeal so this is ideas emotions States qualities concept so for example freedom that's an idea sadness that's an emotion tired that's a state pretty it's a quality math that's a concept I can say sadness to you and you probably picture something you maybe even feel something but it's probably different from what I feel and obviously we both have an understanding of what sadness is but what we're gonna picture what we're gonna feel what we're gonna remember is different when I say pretty we're also all gonna think of different things we know what the word pretty means you know it means aesthetically pleasing to look at but what you find pretty might be different from what I find pretty you also want to be look on the lookout for abstract language in your work and trying to cut that and replacing it with concrete language which is a much more specific and is more so a form of showing concrete language on the other hand is anything that we can experience with the five senses I have said before and I've heard it said before that a concrete word is something you can punch but it's not entirely accurate like that's a way to think of it that's not entirely true because I mean there are even physical objects that I can't punch like a raindrop I don't know how I would punch a single raindrop but it's still concrete and there are things like for example of sounds like the sound of a drum okay obviously there are lots of different kinds of drums but like we know what that sounds like it's still concrete because we can experience it with one of our senses even though I cannot punch it the sound of a drum here are some abstract sentences the painting is beautiful I guarantee that no one watching this video just picture the saint painting because I didn't tell you anything about what the painting looks like I only told you that it was beautiful and that's a very subjective quality we had fun at the park you could have chased some squirrels maybe that's fun for you you could have played jump rope maybe that was fun for you I don't know maybe you like kidnapped someone maybe that was fun for you I have no idea what your idea of fun is you could have played capture the flag you could have been day drinking I really don't know on the other hand in a concrete sentence I could say the painting of the tree is red and gold so obviously this isn't a fantastic sentence it's still not that specific but we know it's a painting of a tree and it's red and gold this is a concrete and it's its objective concrete language is much more objective abstract language is very subjective saying that painting is beautiful you've zoom no idea what the painting looks like similarly we rode the ferris wheel and ate mini donuts at the amusement park I guess I made it an amusement park here and it was just a park and the first one that's how vague it was I just said Park instead of saying that we had fun I described things that objectively are fun like who's not having fun eating mini donuts no one that's an objectively fun thing to do and if you disagree with me I don't know it's kind of messed up of you so that's kind of like what concrete versus abstract language looks like but a lot of the time when we're applying specificity what you're gonna find in your writing is language that's actually it's specific enough for example in US and in that that sentence about the tree it's the painting of the tree is red and gold this is still actually quite in fact because we don't know what kind of tree it is we don't know what kind of painting is like instead a watercolor painting is it an oil painting what I have no idea what kind of tree I guess I'm imagining it as a maple tree because it said it was a red and gold and they get very colorful like that truly no idea so we could make this a much more specific sentence by saying the oil painting of the maple tree is red and gold we've gone a layer deeper into those nouns so I've got some examples here so here's a here's a sentence we ate a platter of cheese and drank a bottle of wine you probably wouldn't if you were reading the sentence in a book stop to go that's awful writing but we could make it better writing by being more specific what kind of cheese what kind of wine so you could rewrite the sentence we ate a wheel of Brie and drink a bottle of Merlot that's a kind of wine right I don't know anything about wine same number of words but it's just more vivid um you know same weight uh some cheese versus saying we ate some brie like people know what that looks like they know what that specific type of cheese tastes like personally and I if you said it was a bottle of Merlot versus any other kind of wine it wouldn't change my understanding of the taste of the wine but it does make it a bit of a more interesting sentence because it's a more interesting word let's go to another example a withering plant sat on the window sill next to a jar of pens it's not awful writing you're probably not gonna notice this and be like this is really bad but we could specify it a little more what type of plant what type of fence so I rewrote this as a withering piece Lily sat on the window sill next to a jar of watercolor pencils you don't get nothing wrong with pens maybe they were just regular pens but I specified what type of pens I guess a watercolor pencil isn't technically a pen whatever but this tells me more about the character usually people who aren't artists don't just have watercolor pencils sitting around specifying what type of plant it is makes it just a more interesting sentence even if the person reading doesn't know specifically what a peacefui looks like it is a more interesting word so here's another one she put on a dress and some shoes so okay this is probably throw with detail in context of a story the characters just getting dressed usually it's not that important but we could learn something about the character we could specify what type of dress what type of shoes and learn something about her style so I said she put on a pinafore and some combat boots make were key choices of her I assumed that this character is like the protagonist of a why a novel based on those styling choices we have learned something before it could have been literally any kind of dress it could have been a wedding dress for all I know like who knows like maybe she was putting on a ball gown so now we have a better understanding of the situation so she's just dressed kind of casually and also her style and so then this last one that I've got is a little more focused on character so this is the kind of thing that you could think of in the larger scope of your story when you're creating a character making them more specific here I'm illustrating it in one sentence but it applies to the larger scope so she worked as a doctor and made time for her hobbies on the weekend but rarely spent time with her family so the questions that I have based on his sentence are what kind of medicine does she practice what are her hobbies and which family members she not spending time with so I remember the sentence as she worked as an anesthesiologist and spent her weekends kayaking and making macrame placemats which she sold on Etsy but rarely spent time with her children we've learned quite a lot about the character we know what kind of medicine she practices she's outdoorsy she kayaks and she also makes macrame placements and the fact that she sells them on Etsy says something about her character because she probably makes a lot of money based on her job so she's not doing this for money she's maybe she has like a kind of an entrepreneurial streak maybe this is a career aspiration that she didn't follow because she felt pressure from her family or to go into fighting but there's a lot more we can learn about the character and infer from the character and we also know now that it's her children she's not spending time with her own children because she's so busy being a doctor and running her Etsy shop kind of the takeaways here of how she make the writing more specific we've looked at some examples kind of the ground rules are you provide details of how things are happening rather than just what happened you describe what emotions or states feel like or what induce to those emotions or rather than labeling them you specify nouns to a deeper level of categorization you might use a research to find more specific terms and in general you're giving the how instead of just the what and when you are giving the what it's a more specific what all of that said I have written on a longer example so this example is quite long and I purposefully made this paragraph very very bad and the reason this paragraph is bad is for a lot of reasons but the main one in this case is because it's very very vague so I wrote this bad version of the paragraph which I will read to you and then I wrote a better version where I specified it and then I wrote an even better version um so you can see the really vague version and then kind of the middle ground and then see it bumped up to like that next level so let's start by looking at the bad version the weather that day made me happy it was very cheerful even though my relationship with my sister Caroline was strained we went to some events we wanted to feel free that day a few times she disappointed or embarrassed me but for the most part we had fun she wants some stuff from a carnival game I was trying to be nice so I bought her dinner when we got home our mother was very angry with us for staying out so late this upset us and we realized we weren't as happy as we'd been pretending to be all day this is a very vague paragraph looking back at this the weather that day made her happy how so was the weather sure for what did that look like um why was their relationship strained what kind of events did they go to why do they want to feel free and what does that mean for them a few times she disappointed her how many times exactly how did she disappoint or embarrass her how did they have fun what did she win from the carnival game and what game was it she bought her dinner what kind of dinner mother was angry what did that look like this upset us how did they react so in the next version of the paragraph I kind of specified a lot of these vague bits it's still not impeccable writing there's still a lot missing but this version I think is substantially better so here's the the middle ground version the weather that day was energizing in praise the sun was shining even though my sister Caroline and I had been fighting a lot recently we went to a fair we wanted to feel grown-up and unrestrained by our parents rules Caroline embarrassed me when she made a scene after losing bowl game and disappeared for an hour after lunch but the rest of the day we went on rides she won some stuffed animals in a beanbag toss I didn't want to fight with her so I bought her a corndog when we got home our mother yelled at us for staying out so late this made Caroline cry and I just retreated to my room realizing we weren't as happy as we've been pretending to be all day so this is better this is clearly much better we get a lot more specific details we know what kind of weather it is it's a bright day we know why the relationship is strained they've been fighting a lot recently Caroline embarrassed her by making a scene the price she was a stuffed animal for dinner she bought her corn dog their mother yelled at them so it's more specific but I still have a lot of questions so for example they've been fighting a lot what had they been fighting about we wanted to feel unrestrained by our parents rules what says Caroline embarrassed me that's telling we shouldn't have to say that Caroline embarrassed her if we get the context of the scene it should be clear that she felt embarrassed she wants some stuffed animals some that's a vague word here's the final version which still isn't incredible but it has a lot more specific details and you will notice it is a lot longer so here's the final version I woke up that morning two birds chittering outside my window the Sun gleamed through the blinds and outside the sky was a robin egg blue the night before at Caroline had insisted it was my turn to take out the garbage even though I knew it was her turn and she ended up throwing one of her shoes at me it was a Doc Martin - she named it right at my face though I dodged it and the heel dented my wall we've been blaming our parents they still nagged us for not eating all our greens and hovered to read our text from over our shoulders we wouldn't have had the fight at all they weren't so insistent about following their chores schedule not mentioning in the previous night's incident Carolyn and I took the bus downtown to an amusement park within the first hour Caroline threw a rubber duck at a carnies face when she lost a game of balloon pop and only caught fourth prize I ducked into the concession stand but lost her in the crowd for an hour after we split a bag of kettle corn for lunch we waited in line for the ferris wheel and went on the roller coaster seven times but the time it was evening Caroline rut Caroline won a stuffed polar bear in a game of beanbag toss she was gloating her wind to the 12 year old boy she'd won against and I bought her a corndog to distract her when we got home our mother yelled at us for staying out past our curfew Caroline started to cry and buried her face in the giant stuffed polar bears fluffy belly I retreated to my room and stared out the window the sky hazy black with no visible stars I could hear Caroline cry through the walls I found through the calendar on my wall and counted how many days it would be until I could move out 114 this gives us a much richer depiction of not only the events but also the characters we get a much clearer understanding of the relationship between the sisters which really is what this is about you know in the context of the story which I don't know what story this is I this is random is it that important that they went to the amusement park and went on some rides like those details aren't really that important what this excerpt isn't getting at is trying to show us the relationship between the sisters and how they relate to each other from this last excerpt here that the main character is trying really hard to make things work with her sister but her sister is a bit of a loose cannon and it's not helped by how strips their parents are and even though she's putting in so much effort at the end of the day she's just left thinking about when she can leave and not see them again we get the sense that the main character feels smothered by her family she feels a little trapped she feels like a lot of responsibility is falling on her and maybe that's starting to bubble over hence why they're fighting over who takes out the garbage maybe the main character feels like all the responsibility is always falling on her because they're sisters such a loose cannon we can gain so much more about the characters and also just from a visual aspect from an interest of reading aspect it's much more interesting you know like the description of their fight saying what they fought over and then it you know devolves into her throwing a shoe and the main character specifies that it was a Doc Martin as if that makes a lot of difference like it wasn't just a shoe like she didn't throw flip-flop at me like she threw up combat boot and like it dented the wall like these are all specific details that we can picture it's a bit voiture the whole thing is a lot richer it's not amazing writing this is the best thing I've ever written by any means but I think for the sake of this example it does showcase what specific writing looks like especially compared to that first example where there was nothing to gain we we couldn't gather anything about the relationship all we could really get from that first version really the only characterizing an emotional detail we got was when it when she said at the end we realized we were happy as we pretending to be all day and I guess that little bit about them saying they wanted to feel free we don't really get anything to relate to from the characters and we also don't even know what it means for them like you want to feel free like from what and like why I'm like what does that what's freedom mean to you I hope that that longer example gives an idea of what specificity looks like it really is a very easy technique to implement that can really punch up your writing if you struggle just with general imagery and feeling like you struggle to write you know nice description add on a layer of specificity can really punch up your descriptions without feeling too fanciful even that is really all I've got to say on specificity I hope this was helpful thank you guys so much for watching if you have any questions you can always send me an ask on tumblr and I'll see you in another video [Music]

Channel: ShaelinWrites

Views: 15,400

Rating: 4.9857144 out of 5

Keywords: writer, writing, author, novelist, creative writing, writetube, writetuber, writing advice, how to write a book, how to write a novel, writing vlog, creative writing degree, books, nanowrimo, authortube, writing tip, specificity, how to use specificity in your writing, concrete language, abstract language, show don't tell, writing tips, how to write imagery, how to write better, how to improve your writing, prose, how to write descriptions, imagery, writing imagery

Id: xgNW3EgtT1E

Length: 18min 28sec (1108 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 17 2020