[Tipster] The Fight for Fresh Language

Cue the Rocky theme song.

Trying hard now

It’s so hard now

Trying hard now

…

Getting strong now

Won’t be long now

Getting strong now

Gonna fly now!

If you’re like me, you’re probably envisioning Rocky’s triumphant, fist-pumping ascent of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The cadence, the choir, the crescendoing coronets—all of it—draw out my inner slugger. A vision of myself worthy of a championship belt after knocking out my own Clubber Lane.

Of course, it’s easy to apply the song to my writing life. And it’s why I now play it as part of my writing ritual.

Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum. Dum ditty dum ditty dumm, b b b b ba b baaaaa b ba baaaaaa....

Yes, it’s a rousing reminder that “winning” at writing is about discipline. Each day I show up to write—and try hard, even when it is so hard—makes me stronger.

But it’s more than that. The lyrics are a reminder to fight for fresh language.

Does Fresh Language Really Matter?

Last week, Dave passed along a piece from the New Yorker that would grab the attention of any person who’s been asked, “What will you do with an English degree?”  

(Yes, I’ve been patronized with that question. And the answer is this Tipster.)

In “The End of the English Major,” Nathan Heller chronicles the free-fall of English degrees in recent years.

This fact-packed essay could be a dry read. The New York Post wrote a similar article on the same data that made me sleepy.

But Heller, as is expected of any feature writer from the New Yorker, fights for freshness.

Within the first few paragraphs, Heller describes the university in two contrasting ways: 

1. “…[a] liberal-arts idyll, removed from the pressures of the broader world and filled with tweedy creatures reading on quadrangle lawns. This is the redoubt of the idealized figure of the English major, sensitive and sweatered, moving from Pale Fire to The Fire Next Time and scaling the heights of Ulysses for the view.”
2. “…[a] research colony, filled with laboratories and conferences and peer-reviewed papers written for audiences of specialists. This is a place that thumps with the energy of a thousand gophers turning over knowledge. It’s the small-bore university of campus comedy—of “Lucky Jim” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”—but also the quarry of deconstruction, quantum electrodynamics, and value theory.”

Heller simply could have said, “There are two types of university paradigms: one focused on the humanities for the sake of cultural enrichment, and the other focused on research and professional training.

His language, though—specific, scene-driven, and sensory—calls each reader back to his/her  tweedy or gopher college days. And in doing so, he invites the reader to imagine a world without one or the other.

Ultimately, you need both—an integration of the two—Heller argues.

Maybe it’s because I identify as a “tweedy creature,” “sensitive and sweatered,” that I kept reading. The point is: Heller kept me reading.

His language was fresh.

Blowing a Cool Breeze through the Reader  

I’ve been re-reading Roy Peter Clark’s book Writing Tools. (It’s a helpful, quick read! I recommend it.)

In the chapter “Seek Original Images: Reject Cliché and First-Level Creativity,” Clark argues that good writers push to the second level, even the third level, of creativity. He writes, “Fresh language blows a cool breeze through the reader.”

It was the “cool breeze” in Heller’s writing that tickled and awakened me.

But how do you know if your writing is stuck at first-level creativity?

My guess is your gut tells you. First-level creativity is too easy, like slip-on shoes.  You slip into the cliches and the obvious descriptions, like “a megawatt smile” or “glassy water,” or “quaking like a leaf.”

Clark offers this advice for the “Rocky Balboa” writers—the ones who want to fight for the best word: “When tempted by a tired phrase…stop writing. Take what the practitioners of natural childbirth call a cleansing breath. Then jot down the old phrase on a piece of paper. Start scribbling alternatives” (p. 81).

As an example, let’s fight for fresh language with the phrase “cold as ice”:

Cold that burned my skin like an ice pack

Numb-toed, stiff-finger cold

Cold and sharp as a shark’s bite

Colder than a polar bear could bear.

These may not be “level-one” phrases: I’d probably have to stick with this exercise to get there. I’m sure you could add to the list (please email me yours!). But the fight for fresh will always move you closer to writing that blows a cool breeze.

So buckle up—and fight for fresh language.