I’ll tell you a thing that will shock you. It will…
““I’ll tell you a thing that will shock you. It will certainly shock the readers of Writer’s Digest. What I often do nowadays when I have to, say, describe a room, is to take a page of a dictionary, any page at all, and see if with the words suggested by that one page in the dictionary I can build up a room, build up a scene. … I even did it in a novel I wrote called MF. There’s a description of a hotel vestibule whose properties are derived from Page 167 in R.J. Wilkinson’s Malay-English Dictionary. Nobody has noticed. … As most things in life are arbitrary anyway, you’re not doing anything naughty, you’re really normally doing what nature does, you’re just making an entity out of the elements. I do recommend it to young writers.””
About This Quote
This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.
A writer uses a random dictionary page to generate descriptive language for scenes, treating language as arbitrary building blocks.
In simple terms: Using random words to craft vivid descriptions.
Key Takeaway
Experiment with unconventional sources for creative writing.
Themes
writing
creativity
language
Mood
experimental
playful
Type
literary
instructional
When to use this quote
- novel writing
- workshop exercises
- creative prompts
Key Concepts
randomness
lexicon
imagination
Questions to Reflect On
- How does randomness affect narrative flow?
- Can this technique improve descriptive skill?
A Different Perspective
May produce incoherent or forced prose if overused.