One More Thing on Word Lists...

Following the last post...

I've also seen a lot of lists of words to help writers with the most beautiful words or the best way to say X and so on. They are interesting to take note of for a moment, but the problem is that these lists are all about new, intoxicating words to help you do a better job of telling, not showing.

Bucolic is a beautiful word. Desultory is another. Pastiche is yet another. and Redolent.

But, where do they get the reader in terms of understanding the scene (bucolic), the nature of a character (desultory), the emotional resonance of a beautiful tableau (pastiche), or peculiar or idiosyncratic scent of a place or person (redolent)? How do these words cause a reader to sense, to feel these things? How do they entice the reader to open his or her entire list of characters and scenes and relative attributes that we all carry in our minds through personal experience to see, hear, feel, know a person or place or event?

They don't.

They are beautiful words that have a place in writing, but not as a means to avoid the hard work of describing why a scene is bucolic, a woman's perfume redolent, or why a tableau of people eating a meal reminds a character of an important experience in his or her life.