30c Balancing general and specific language

30cBalancing general and specific language

Effective writers move their prose along by balancing general words, which name or describe groups or classes of things, with specific words, which refer to individual items. Some general words are abstractions, referring to qualities or ideas, things that the five senses cannot perceive. Specific words are often concrete words, referring to things we can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. We can seldom draw a clear-cut line between general or abstract words on the one hand and specific or concrete ones on the other. Instead, most words fall somewhere between these two extremes.

GENERAL LESS GENERAL SPECIFIC MORE SPECIFIC
book dictionary abridged dictionary The American Heritage College Dictionary
ABSTRACT LESS ABSTRACT CONCRETE MORE CONCRETE
culture visual art painting van Gogh’s Starry Night

Passages that contain too many general terms or abstractions demand that readers supply the specific details with their imaginations, making such writing hard to read. But writing that is full of specifics can also be hard to follow if the main point is lost amid a flood of details. Strong writing usually provides readers both with a general idea or overall picture and with specific examples or concrete details to fill in that picture. In the following passage, the author might have simply made a general statement—their breakfast was always liberal and good—or simply described the breakfast. Instead, he is both general and specific.

There would be a brisk fire crackling in the hearth, the old smoke-gold of morning and the smell of fog, the crisp cheerful voices of the people and their ruddy competent morning look, and the cheerful smells of breakfast, which was always liberal and good, the best meal that they had: kidneys and ham and eggs and sausages and toast and marmalade and tea.

—THOMAS WOLFE, Of Time and the River

Here a student writer balances a general statement (My next-door neighbor is a nuisance) with specific details:

My next-door neighbor is a nuisance, poking and prying into my life, constantly watching me as I enter and leave my house, complaining about the noise when I am having a good time, and telling my parents whenever she sees me kissing my date.