I’ve read a lot of Discworld novels, and like a good popular writer who is a master of prose , his vocabulary is vast and efficient. I think of Raymond Chandler who could balance hard-boiled fiction with the care of a well-versed antiques dealer slipping on a knuckle-duster from the watch pocket of a double-breasted suit. Except Pratchett doesn’t ever come across as fancy for even a minute with a brief aside. He uses humor. Pratchett makes me want to look up words every few minutes, and yet, I know I don’t have to. You can easily fall in love with the Discworld without bothering to look up the fifty or hundred words you didn’t quite understand.
Predators it’s because these words are referential? He uses “pretty” to mean pretty and that’s good enough for him. But he will explain that the garden grew gentian and lupin and mot just “flowers”, that this device lost a flywheel, not a “gear”. And again, he isn’t trying to be fancy. He isn’t ever “technical”. It all just seems so natural. I’m reading a Crichton pirate novel right now, and Crichton was famously technical woth jargon, but I’m surprised at how much simpler Pratchett is. Patrick O’Brien is far more “technical” with historic and nautical jargon and that makes it a slower read if you want to appreciate the work that went into it.
Pratchett on the other hand just dips into the natural descriptions and references for humor, and that puts him in the sweet spot – a larger vocabulary than most, but it rarely feels that way.
What do you think? What’s the key to accomplishing this in your opinion?
by RandomDigitalSponge