WORDS without MEANING_ IWSG post

Take WE THE PEOPLE

pretty straightforward, right?

Still, politicians, even Founding Fathers, 

have to placate expediency so ...

Blacks were counted as half a People  
and Native Americans as only 25% a People 

and that was only done to satisfy the bickering states 

for population count was important in determining the number of representatives each state had in the House.

Yet those words and the ones following them are important because of the ideals that lay behind them.

William Shatner let those ideals slip as his ego took control of his performance ...

and we as writers should learn from that.

Our words should not draw attention to us but to our story.  

Our words touch the reader's heart to feel when

we keep from telling them what to feel.

Take the two words above:  

Touch ...Heart

Say I write: 

"It felt so good when she touched me."

It just lays there, right?

 

Now, read Jim Butcher's way of writing it:

“There’s power in the touch of another person’s hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. 

There’s a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands. 

It comes from our very earliest memories, 

when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, 

flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, 

shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. 

And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror? 

The touch of another person’s hands. 

Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. 

Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. 

Hands that hold and touch and reassure us through our very first crisis, 

and guide us into our very first shelter from pain. 

The first thing we ever learn is that the touch of someone else’s hand can ease pain and make things better. 

That’s power. 

That’s power so fundamental that most people never even realize it exists.” 

WORDS HAVE MEANING ONLY 

IF WE WORK TO GIVE IT TO THEM.

WRITE WELL.

YOU NEVER KNOW

WHO ACHES TO READ WORDS THAT

TOUCH THEIR BRUISED HEART. 

Have a great March!