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In one book I read about writing, “Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace,†the author tries to teach you how to write with clarity and grace, but among the principles which he sets forth, not one is given about word-choice. It is as if the author is saying that following a number of rules will automatically result in clear and graceful writing. But although it may result in clear writing, I don’t see how it can result in graceful writing, unless among those rules there are some about word-choice. For things like grammatical shape and parallelism are great, but by themselves they seem to be limited. For it is the sound of the words themselves that create rhythm and give writing a certain sound. Am I wrong in thinking that word-choice is important, and not only things like shape and parallelism?
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Depends on what you are writing and the imagery you want to portray. Ugly words may be chosen on purpose to fit a personality that don't fit into what you would call grace and clarity. It also depends on what you are writing. Poetry may very well need clarity, grace, and appropriate word choice to achieve the desired affects. A novel about war probably does not need grace or beautiful word choices as war in itself is ugly and harsh. Of course there is always the exception of romanticizing war.
In the end words make the cake taste a little sweeter, but without the structures and rules that go into what makes a good sentence, the cake turns into a pile of mush. The cake may taste sweet, but it won't look appealing at all.
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