Japanese Literary Terms

By Neil Plakcy

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When I began writing my series of stories based on the concepts of Japanese healing fiction, I discovered that there are many uniquely Japanese literary terms. The popularity of this form, of haiku, and even of K-drama, can help with all kinds of writing. Here are fifteen of the ones I’ve found, along with ways they can be used to generate emotional depth in your work. You don’t need to use the specific term—just understand how it can be used.

Aware

You can use the Japanese term aware (AH-WAH-RAY) to recognize that many of the objects in your work may have an emotional resonance, with feelings of sadness, patriotism, or happiness. Examples include a childhood home, seeing Olympians in the colors of the United States flag, the photo of a dead relative.

Hibiki

(HE-BEE-KEY) means echo. When the gray sky echoes the emotional despair of the character. When the noise of contractors working outside reflects the anger in a conversation.

Jo-ha-kyū

This concept of modulation and movement suggests actions should begin slowly, speed up, and then end swiftly. Compare this to the traditional three or four-act structure in genre fiction.

Kaori

(KAH-OH-REE) literally means scent or fragrance, but it has a deeper meaning in Japanese literature. For fiction writers, it can relate to the way we evoke the same feeling with very different images. Both a puppy lost in the rain and a newly divorced man might have kaori.

Karumi

(KAH-RUE-ME) means lightness, and the Japanese poet Basho used it to represent the beauty of ordinary things spoken of in a simple way. Sometimes we don’t need elaborate language or metaphors to convey feeling. An empty coffee mug left on the desk of a departed co-worker could be just a mug—or it could reflect something about the impermanence of friendship or business connections or the harshness of an economic recession.

Kidai

(KEY-DAY'EE) is a Japanese way of using metonyms. “Hollywood” represents the motion picture industry, and the White House stands for presidential power.

Kigo

(KEY-GO) are nouns which imply the season because they have been traditionally associated with certain times of the year in Japanese literature and/or real life. Daffodils and jonquils are among the first flowers of spring. With their variegated petals of red and yellow, chrysanthemums represent autumn.

Komorebi

The literal meaning of this word is the dappled sunlight filtering through trees, but it can remind us to bring gentle beauty into our works.

Ma

Ma represents the importance of emptiness in a composition. Consider the pause between action and response, between two characters expressing emotion. Ma signifies a moment of contemplation or a pause within a piece. 

Mono no aware

The addition of "mono" (things/objects) transforms the concept into an awareness of the transient nature of all things and the gentle sadness that comes with this understanding. It's not just about feeling touched or moved—it's about recognizing the inherent impermanence in beauty and life itself. This concept can be useful when you have a reflective character considering his or her past.

Mono no aware is a Japanese idiom that conveys a deep awareness of the impermanence of things and the sadness that comes with it. 

A classic example that illustrates the difference: When viewing cherry blossoms...

• Aware might be the simple emotional response to their beauty

• Mono no aware would be the bittersweet appreciation of their beauty precisely because they are fleeting, combined with the recognition that this very impermanence is what makes them so meaningful in Japanese culture
  

Mushin

(MOO-SHE'N) refers to a mental state of complete focus and clarity, free from distractions and emotional turmoil. In English, we might consider that “flow.” Consider how you can use this to show your character at work or at play.

Sabi

(SAH-BEE) signifies age or loneliness. Use an image in your writing that expresses something aged or weathered with a hint of sadness because of being abandoned. A boarded-up building in a city, or an old barn in the countryside.

Wabi

(WAH-BEE) means poverty, but in your writing it can be used to express something that is a result of living simply. Consider a well-lived-in kitchen, a pair of frayed jeans, or a coffee table scarred by long use.

Wabi-sabi

Combining wabi and sabi brings us to the beauty of imperfection and impermanence. You can use this to express the feeling that a character has for an object that has been well-used or damaged in the past.

Yugen

A mysterious and profound beauty that cannot be fully expressed in words, often associated with a sense of deep emotion. Compare this to Hemingway’s idea that a story is like an iceberg; only part of it is visible above the surface. What lies beneath is yugen.

The Writer’s Playbook | A Ripe Kumquat

By Steven Harms

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“Fumble at the thirty-two-yard line! Rod Smith jumped on that ball like it was a ripe kumquat!”

That line was uttered during a radio broadcast of a Detroit Lions home football game. And I’d bet my life savings that “kumquat” hadn’t been used in an NFL broadcast prior and would never be again. The Lions radio color announcer, Jim Brandstatter, made that rather pointed reference to a Lions defensive player recovering the fumbled ball. The idea of a kumquat on a football field conjures up a comedic image. A fumbled football is sort of one itself: as the ball bounces around, players scramble to get it; sometimes they accidentally kick it or refumble it as they frantically try to hold on. In the context of a fumbled football, using a kumquat simile was perfect.

Why did he say it that way? Well, he and I had a weekly challenge when I was working for the Lions. Each week during the season I would give him a word that he had to weave into the broadcast. I wrote it out on a small piece of paper about an hour before kickoff, entered the broadcast booth, and subtly handed it to him. It was our “thing.” If he was able to insert the “word of the game” into the broadcast each week during the season, I owed him lunch. If he missed one game, he owed me the same. As the weeks wore on, I had to get more creative if I wanted to win, and I thought I had him trapped with “kumquat.” The fumble happened in the fourth quarter, no less, of that game. Jim told me afterward he was on the verge of losing but for that fumble.

The point is, using a kumquat as a descriptive simile worked. In fact, it worked very well. Reimagine the utterance if it was a ripe apple, green bean, onion, or ear of corn. Not quite the same for some reason, is it? Or worse, if he stated “like a ripe egg” or “like a noisy kumquat.”

Bad similes are story killers and can take an author’s credentials down a few notches on the reader’s scale. They undermine a reader’s engagement with the story and implant in them a negative distraction that may carry throughout the rest of the book. 

However, a well-written simile can evoke just the right emotion. As a creative tool, it paints a picture that resonates in readers’ minds—good or bad—but it clicks. Similes can be quite powerful if written well and deployed at the perfect intersectional moment. 

A few rules to follow in writing similes (and there may be others):

KEEP THEM LOGICAL

The simile must be logical in comparison with the moment described, and it must have an immediate connection for the reader. If the reader needs to pause to think through the comparison because it doesn’t compute, don’t use it.

USE THEM SPARINGLY

Overuse of anything is generally not an effective strategy. I’ll relate it back to sports. If a football team always runs to the left on first down, the maneuver becomes boring and predictable and unsuccessful. 

STAY WITHIN COMMON KNOWLEDGE

A simile that uses unique or uncommon elements in the comparison can destroy the moment because the reader can’t grasp what it is you’re trying to say. If Jim Brandstatter had said “Rod Smith jumped on that ball like it was a timorous mangosteen!” (a real fruit from Southeast Asia), he may have been fired the next morning, or at least ridiculed for a full week.

STAY CLEAR OF SIMILARITY

When you’re deciding on a simile, ensure the two components of your comparison are different enough to drive home the point. As an example, a sentence that reads “She ran up the hill like an athlete in training” doesn’t give the reader much clarity on what that character was doing, since athletes do run up hills as part of their training regimen. There’s not a lot of separation. Conversely, “She ran up the hill like a wounded deer” creates an image of a frantic person, hobbled by fear as she’s trying to get somewhere fast and out of sight.

Whenever similes are deployed, read them to yourself to see if they’re effective. As an example, one of my characters in The Counsel of the Cunning voices his feeling that what he and his assistant detective are experiencing during their hunt for a missing person isn’t adding up. He amplifies this and says, “it’s like a duck in robin’s nest.” The point being that while a duck and a robin are both birds, their distinctions are profound, and a duck would never, nor could ever, be in a robin’s nest. He instinctively knows something is “just off,” and he uses this simile to make the point. He’s saying a bird in a nest is right, but the type of bird is wrong, or the nest should be in the water and not in a tree. In other words, their hunt is going in a direction that gives him pause, that makes him think something’s amiss, but he can’t quite put a finger on it.

Similes are a great tool to propel a story or a moment or a character description. But they are a unique tool and need to be done with precision if used. Don’t shy away from using them as writers, but be tactical in placing them and intuitive in writing them.