When you read a good book, such as: the classic "To Kill A Mockingbird", or the modern "Dexter", you will find that the authors used a lot of "hidden gems" words. Meaning the words which hardly appear in everyday conversation. How did they do it? Do i need to take creative writing course to do this? cheers
You need to do exactly what you'r doing now and read great authors with great vocabularies. Not that using big words is always a good idea (in fact, I think many people would agree that the opposite is almost always true), there are instances where it may be of benefit to use a more exciting word. The obvious problem with using these words that aren't familiar to you is that you will use them wrongly, either in the wrong context or to express something the word is not intended to convey, or in the worst case, use the word as the wrong part of speech. If big words/impressive vocabularies are what you are in search of, I would highly recommend The Frog King by Adam Davies as a way to do it right. He uses a huge number of obscure and amazing words, invariably correctly. In fact, the OED has quoted his novels a few times as examples for usage of some words (nepenthe being one).
A gem of a word is a bit like an Easter egg. It's a pleasure for the reader to discover. But you had better know the word inside out, and use it correctly, as arron noted. Writing can be great even without the Easter eggs, though. Clarity if king (but not necessarily King). And a word used incorrectly is every bit as delightful as nails dragged across a chalkboard.
Hey Cog, What if you happen to be one of those weird people who enjoys the sound of nails on a chalkboard? I'm not one of them, but I know people who are. I don't really understand it, but I felt I had to ask. Of course, me mentioning it could also be because I found your image so amusing I had to poke holes at it... ~Lynn
