Words of Power: A Summing Up?

I’ve been having a terrible time getting connected to the internet today, both at work and at home. It has taken me forever to get some comments written, so if I haven’t gotten around to your blog that’s the reason. I did want to try and post some more on the “words of power” idea. Maybe if I copy and paste this I’ll be able to get it posted.

First, thanks to everyone for their wonderful comments. I saw a lot of great words listed. While most words mentioned were nouns--“Iron,” “Bone,” “Sword”--there were some cool adjectives such as “Feral” and “Burning.” I was happy to see, for internal reasons, that not all the power words mentioned were concrete.

The words actually seemed to come in three categories. “Fire,” “Gun” and “Mist” are pretty concrete, pretty visual. "Pain," “Midnight,” “Sunlight,” and “Adrenaline” are more amorphous. They’re sort of between the concrete and the abstract. “Fear,” “Evil,” and “Violence” are typically defined as abstract.

The reason I was glad to see abstract words in folks’ lists is because I’ve had a running debate with some writer friends about words like “Violence” and “Soul” for some time. I’ve been told repeatedly that “Violence” is an ineffective word because people can’t visualize it. The problem with that argument is that I can visualize it. I’ve even gone so far as to respond with: “Violence is concrete.” I realize now what I actually mean. Words like “Pain” and “Fear” and “Violence” have a great deal of resonance, so much so that they call up plenty of concrete visuals when I see them used.

I think this means that my friends are wrong and I’m right. So there. :)~

Or am I?

More on this topic to come.