The Favourite Adjectives & Adverbs of Rowling, Myers and Collins

In what I, as a Literature student, consider very cool – and the rest of the World, as normal people, find utterly dull and pointless – Slate.com have done a textual analysis on big three fantasy YA series: Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games.

What is interesting about a textual analysis is that it allows you to take a step back from the filler of the books and have a look at why one reader may enjoy one series and not another. Below is a table of words used more than 10 times by that author and that author only (so, for example, if all three authors used the word ‘cat’ more than 10 times it would not appear), therefore revealing the words most distinctive to that particular author’s work:

Ben Blatt explains that “These lists give us a sense of the authors’ respective proclivities and reflect the general tone of each series. The Hunger Games is a technical dystopia relying on detailed descriptions of the action (thus the prevalence of words like “intensely” and “electronic”). Twilight is wrapped up in emotion (thus “anxiously,” “unwilling,” and “unreadable”—the last is typically used to describe a character’s expression). Harry Potter is an exploration of a world by turns wondrous and frightening (thus “dreamily,” “terrified”). Collins’ adjectives are often used in a utilitarian manner, to describe processes (as in “One of the heaviest days of betting is the opening, when the initial casualties come in.”). Meyer, meanwhile, is more likely to use her adjectives to describe people (as in “he asked in his silken, irresistible voice”).”

If you’ve got the time and inclination I suggest you head on over to Slate.com and check out the rest of the article, which also looks at the most common ways each author starts a sentence and by looking at how the word choice changes across each individual book throughout the series and a look at whose sentence variety is lacking.

Textual Analysis is a very cool way of looking at how an author creates certain moods and feelings and is something you can apply to your own work to see whether you’re hitting the right tone too. If you

Print Friendly