One Word Separates Good Writing from Great Writing

How Adhering to a Single Word Enhances Sophistication

“Variance.” The simple answer is variance, but let’s take a step back to see how exactly this word can revolutionize your writing.

Variance, in a literary definition, is the conscious implementation of dissimilarity. An antonymic explanation is perhaps better: The strategic avoidance of redundancy.

Whether you are defending your thesis, penning an article, writing a story, or trying to earn the sophistication point in an AP English Language and Composition course — the magic of variance can be divided into three components: Lexical Variance, Syntactical Variance, and Conceptual/Contextual Variance.

I. Lexical Variance

Lexical variance refers to strategically avoiding redundant wording. This is the simplest and most easily understandable step.

Have you ever heard a word said multiple times only for the word to start sounding strange, as if it wasn’t real? This psychological phenomenon, semantic satiation, has various explanations, though it is at least partially rooted in the fact that the connection between context (what the word means in a certain usage) and sound begin to separate with each re-utterance, and what’s a word emptied of context? Answer: Just sound. [If this tickles your fancy: Check out Ferdinand De Saussure’s Course on General Linguistics or Jacques Derrida’s Différance.]

Anyway, the same sense of meaninglessness occurs when you overuse words in your writing. Sure, for a short time there is a cumulative meaning — as in when you strategically incorporate anophoras (i.e., “I have a dream…” x 8) or chiasmus (i.e., “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country”; — but over time, the meaning of the term ceases to exist, and all that’s left is cacophonous nothingness.

So, what can we do?

The Most Important Step for Implementing Lexical Variance: SPECIFICITY (when needed)

• Verbs: ‘Use’ is ‘use’ when it isn’t more accurately ‘utilize’, ‘operationalize’, ‘leverage’, ‘take advantage of’, or ‘manipulate’.
• Adjectives: ‘Sad’ is ‘sad’ if it’s not more precisely ‘rejected’, ‘alienated’, ‘crestfallen’, ‘nostalgic’, ‘ ‘miserable’, ‘lugubrious’, or ‘melancholic’.
• Nouns: ‘Noise’ is ‘noise’ if it isn’t ‘din’, ‘commotion’, ‘blast’, ‘hum’ or ‘buzz’.
  And so on.

Here’s a strategy: If the word you’ve selected could benefit from a modifier (i.e., if the verb could use an adverb, like if the noun could be bettered with an adjective), replace it. Crying loudly? Howled. Staring angrily? Glared or Pierced. Super charming? Magnetic, Mezmerizing, Irresistible, or Charismatic (or ‘having Riz’ ir you’re Gen Z).

Let’s look at an example excerpt to demonstrate lexical redundancy:

The Great Gatsby uses love as a central theme, shown through the characters’ relationships. Gatsby’s love for Daisy is shown through his great gestures, such as throwing lavish parties in the hope of showcasing his worth. Daisy, in turn, is shown to be in love with her husband, Tom, shown primarily through how she is used to the lavish life he provides for her. The novel shows love as a powerful force that can drive characters to both great and greatly destructive actions, showcasing the various ways love manifests and influences the characters’ lives. Thus, The Great Gatsby shows the different facets of what love means, through both the good and bad.

Note that each and every of these bolded words can be replaced by a more suitable term. Both our first usage of ‘use’ and ‘shown’ can be replaced by explores/explored. Let’s take a look now at the same excerpt but with lexical variance:

The Great Gatsby explores love as a central theme, magnified through the characters’ relationships. Gatsby’s adoration for Daisy is demonstrated through his extravagant gestures, such as throwing lavish parties in the hope of broadcasting his worth. Daisy, in turn, is represented as being in devoted to her husband, Tom, exposed primarily through how she is acclimated to the affluent life he provides for her. The novel reveals love as a powerful force that can drive individuals to both admirable and reprehensible actions, exhibiting the various ways attachment manifests and influences lives. Thus, The Great Gatsby expands on the different facets of what love means, through both the good and bad.

Notice that extraneous words were removed, an occasional term was reused (love, for example, being the central topic was used twice), and the most polysyllabic word was ‘reprehensible’ — nothing a 9th grader couldn’t drum up.

So, despite the strange fact that “Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” is technically a complete sentence, we tend to buffalo-out by the third buffalo. In other words, the word “Buffalo” has begun to lose its “buffalo-ness”, right? (Whispers: buffalo.)

Onward, Buffalonians.

II. Syntactical Variance

Syntactical variance refers to avoiding redundant sentence styles. While not as easy as incorporating lexical variance, this step is far from difficult.

Have you ever noticed when a professor repeats a certain phrase, such as “and the interesting thing is…”, or a presentation where “after that…” marked every transition, or a meeting where “and the next item” begins to droll like a funeral bell? In essays, teachers and professors alike come across the ridiculously useless phrase “this means that”, which, in every single circumstance can be removed while the sentence remains intact (and improved!). The absolutely mind-numbing effect of syntactical redundance is most palpably experienced in classrooms, lecture halls, speeches, and boardrooms.

Fortunately, there’s a simple way to handle this tendency.

The Most Important Step for Implementing Syntactical Variance: COGENCY

• Transitions: If you are writing an essay, crafting a speech, or outlining your debate points, your body paragraphs ought to contain some sort of reference to what has been said along with an identifier of the relationship (“While buffalo (x8) is technically a sentence, the ambiguity of its meaning supersedes its correctness, for what is a sentence without a clear meaning?)
• Structure: The ordering of words within a clause (dependent and independent components of a sentence) ought to vary, along with the weight of sentences.

Let’s look at an example excerpt to demonstrate syntactical redundancy:

At the busy office space, Alex overheard his office workers discussing their boss’s wedding. During the office hours, their gossip annoyed Alex. During their talking, Alex was still able to focus on his work. At the end of the office hours, Alex was just able to finish his work.

Now, unless you are strategically exercising syntactical (and lexical) redundancy in order to have the reader feel a very similar aggravation as poor Alex, this is awfully boring. Every sentence is bi-clausal with Alex situated in the second clause.

Let’s try that again, but add in some transitions and modify the weight and order (structure).

Alex overheard his office workers discussing their boss’s wedding. Their gossip annoyed him all throughout the day, even at times when he could still focus on his work. By the end of the day, though, Alex was just able to finish.

Again, if you are doing this to create a strategic effect (i.e., making the frustration Alex experiences pour out towards the reader), this works well. The difference is whether the decisions are pragmatic.

III. Conceptual/Contextual Variance

Conceptual variance refers to avoiding an insular approach to your writing content.

Have you ever heard the phrase “standing too close to the elephant” or “losing the forest for the trees”? Both refer to the flawed nature rooted in our tendency to forget to zoom-out and see the bigger picture. It’s also worth noting that if we stare too long at any given shape or object, it begins to lose its overall shape and fizzles into independent relatively-meaningless components, a psychological phenomenon called Gestaltzerfall or “shape decomposition” (a term derived from the Gestalt Psychologists in the early 20th century who focused on the discrepancies between something and the sum of its parts). While semantic satiation renders words meaningless, focusing only on one specific topic for too long yields a growing sense of inapplicablility, irrelevance, and uselessness.

Of course, zooming-out isn’t always the right variation. Who is to say we can’t “lose the trees for the forest” or “stand too far from the elephant”? We can also look at different trees, a different forest, or just look differently (that’s an example of using repetition [non-variance] strategically). Maybe we can look at a buffalo, instead of an elephant.

The Most Important Step for Implementing Conceptual Variance: RECONTEXTUALIZING

• If one remains too zoomed-in, one runs the risk of bring claustrophobic and boring. (If you’re banging on about the pink tax, it would be a good idea to step back and examine the waves of feminism that uncovered this reality.)
• If one remains too zoomed-out, one runs the risk of bring vague and boring. (If you’re going on about how feminism is such a reputable collection of movements, you should dive into some precise evidence to support your claim.)
• One can also change the zoomed-in topic. (If one has focused on the pink tax and has already properly framed it within feminism, one can analyze the counterclaims — like the fact that women could very well collectively combat the pink tax in myriad ways.)
• One can also change the zoomed-out context. (If one has focused on the waves of feminism and some of the societal improvements they carried, it might be a good idea to juxtapose it with similar cultural phenomena, like the Civil Rights Movement.)

Final Thoughts

Variance — whether lexical, syntactical, or contextual — could very well be the single differentiating factor between good and great writing. Of course, there must be a balance. Just as a good song relies on patterned sounds (i.e., continuous melodies, repeated choruses, etc.) AND delightful disruptions (i.e., bridges, solos, codas, etc.), writing must possess an equilibrium of variance AND consistency. Whether someone is looking at words, sentences, or contexts, the decisions must be strategically thought-out.

Why did you use ‘elucidate’ instead of ‘tell’? Why did you transition with ‘despite the reality of this truth’ when preparing to counter a fact you’ve outlined? Why did you zoom-in on the velocity of the Buffalo buffalo buffaloing?

Buffalo.

Samuel Armen is an author, educator, podcast host, and activist. Orphaned after Armenia’s Gyumri-Spitak Earthquake in 1988 and adopted by Armenian-Americans based in New York, he makes it his life goal to give back. Currently, he divides his time between his psychology research, teaching ELA & AP English Language and Composition in the top public high school in Brooklyn, teaching psychology as an Adjunct Lecturer at Hunter College, creative writing guest lectures at The Russian Armenian University in Yerevan, teaching and managing an English Creative Writing program (Project Bloom) through the Children of Armenia Fund, uplifting members of his community through digital advocacy, and publishing articles and poetry. Innerversal — his video podcast aiming to make all forms of psychology accessible by fusing it with topics ranging from gut health and education to entrepreneurship and fatherhood — was launched on Spotify in April 2023. He is currently shopping around his psychology book to various agents (and would love a good connection).