Writing A — Z: B is for Bombast and Brave
As the “Word Wizard,” I love exploring words that can be eye-catching or attention grabbing. That’s why I especially enjoyed speaking about Bombast as it relates to writing or telling our story in my Clubhouse room recently!
Bombast can be defined as pompous, inflated or pretentious writing or speech. It refers to the kind of word one would use to attempt to sound important, educated, or to point attention back to oneself! It’s writing a story that makes “me” and “my” feelings and thoughts, the entire point of the writing.
Don’t get me wrong! When we share our stories, we do draw upon our experiences — good, bad and indifferent! The point, though, shouldn’t be to make the writing about us! The point is to focus on the reader or listener. Our purpose should always be to help a reader or listener who is struggling to travel from point A — the past, to point B — present day or even the future.
Our goal should be to offer someone about to give up, a reason to keep going; to provide a lifeline for someone hanging on by a thread; to extend grace and hope to someone who is running short of both. Our words matter. Bombastic words are counter to this purpose.
Bombast draws attention to ourselves and communicates a sense of self-importance in our communication. In reality it’s reflective of our insecurity and lack of confidence in ourselves and in the impact/importance of our story! But our story matters! YOUR story matters!
So how do we avoid bombast? We avoid it through being authentic and vulnerable. It can be scary! But it’s vital to do so! It’s not possible to have the impact we intend unless we let our reader or listener know we understand what they’re going through. We must establish our credibility with our audience. If we hope to offer a lesson, advice, guidance, healing, hope, grace, we must share our journey with integrity and honesty. That’s brave!
Bravery puts us “out there” for others. It peels back the layers of the process we traveled through to arrive at our current place of triumph. It doesn’t cover over the pain or the hardship. It doesn’t hide our own weakness and faltering. Bravery rejoices that we triumphed in spite of both because of the ONE who walked beside us on our journey.
Bravery turns the eyes and the hearts of our audience to the One who exemplified bravery beyond any we could every display. Bravery lays bare any pretense, deception or bombast! Bravery displaces fear, doubt and fainting. Our brave story celebrates the assurance that “if I got through, so can you.” Our brave story lends courage to others and serves as a guide.
So, tell your brave story! If you need help, reach out to me! I help writers tell their transformational stories to heal the world!
You can find Mary at linktr.ee/themarymoss
