As a brand new feature, Accents Junior Editor Christopher McCurry will provide a Literary Term of the Week. Following a description of the term, Christopher invites readers of the Accents Blog to write a poem prompted by the week’s term.

Diction, also known as the author’s word choice, has three qualities:

1. Lyrical: the sound of the word
2. Denotative: the dictionary definition of the word
3. Connotative: the imaginative, emotional, cultural and implied understanding of the word when used in the context of a given situation.

As a writer, you must balance the three, be precise but understand the layers of meaning built into each word, and keep the sound of them in mind as you work.

Tips and Tricks:

• It’s usually not wise to sacrifice denotative or connotative for lyrical qualities unless you are Edwin Morgan.
• Deciding whether a word seems positive or negative can be the first step to understanding its connotative qualities—for example, skinny vs. thin; childish vs. childlike.
• If you don’t know the dictionary definition of a word, it’s likely you don’t understand its connotative qualities.
• Words that are more than one part of speech can do double sometimes triple duty.
• The more words you know, the more fun you can have.

Exercise:

Use the following six words in a poem, considering how they work together. For the ambitious: use the six words for the last words in the line of a sestina.

Lance        Plume

Brother      Gray

Weather    Snare