‘In six seconds, you’ll hate me. But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.’
That’s how Chuck Palahniuk (author of Fight Club) starts his essay to new writers, because he’s about to fire a water cannon of bitter medicine down their gullets.
If Palahniuk had his way, beginners wouldn’t be allowed to use Thought Verbs — i.e. words that describe the work of the heart and the brain.
Words like:
- Thinks
- Knows
- Understands
- Realises
- Believes
- Wants
- Remembers
- Imagines
- Desires
Why? Because they make your writing feel unreal… hazy… abstract.
In your regular life, you can’t tune into another person’s thoughts like longwave radio.
You have to pick up on signs from that person’s behaviour. Or make assumptions by scanning a crowd. We people-watch and ask questions like:
- Who’s up?
- Who’s down?
- Who’s in?
- Who’s out?
Gossiping in this way is some of the best fun you can have legally. Our brains are primed for it.
Palahnuik says, that work of ‘speculation’ or ‘interpretation’ should continue when readers switch from people-watching in the real world to watching fictional people:
‘Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them.
‘Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.’
And that brings us to the above extract about Tom, unfairly branded a Butt Wipe.
Palahniuk gives readers a single utterance to work with. Yet they can tell Lisa’s out to get her classmate. And as no one wants to be bullied, we bet Tom wants the torture to end.
All that from a word, hissed at registration.
Try it for a while. Take Thought Verbs off the table. You’ll be left with the good stuff:
‘Only specific sensory detail: action, smell, taste, sound, and feeling.’
‘No more short-cuts’
Aidan Clifford writes for Pinstripe Poets – artists who love their day jobs. This post is part of a series called ‘Write like the Greats’. See the rest here.
