Current Project:Spirit of the Lake
Status: 37,785 words
No, it’s not a new children's program to learn how to read. As writers we know the power of words. We've read books or short stories or heard songs that moved us. It could have been the characters, the premise, but I can guarantee you it was the words the writer used to make that character so real or the premise crystal clear or that song hit the right nerve.
When I started writing; like all new writers, I just wanted to get my ideas down in grammatically correct sentences. I had some killer sentences here and there and managed to get kudos from some contest judges. But I didn't fully appreciate the power of a well placed word.
Then I took a workshop on self editing. I pulled out the highlighters and began highlighting verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Wow! There were certain words I REALLY liked to use over and over again. And I still do, ask Lori. LOL By highlighting those words I realized I needed to dig deeper for better words. My "The New Roget's Thesaurus in Dictionary Form" has the ratty cover to prove I started digging deeper.
Now I spend half my time reading manuscripts from seasoned and not so seasoned writers. Reading a historical western and seeing contemporary words in the dialog or narrative makes my teeth clench. It also has me rereading my own work and checking words I'm unsure of at the online entomology dictionary. It has become my new best friend when writing. The thesaurus you pull up next to your word document is up continually when I write. Any time a word doesn’t seem significant enough for the sentence, emotion, or nuance I want, I'll spend ten minutes searching through the thesaurus typing in words that kind of mean what I want but don’t quite zing.
The right word makes my heart pump and an invisible hand pats me on the back for being serious about using the right word. And that my friend is "Word Power".
Do you have specials sites, books you use to find the right word? If so share. You never know when I'll find a better way to give my words power.
7 comments:
Paty -- words are important and the nuances available through thoughtful choices always amazes me. I do many of the things you do, no tricks, just searching and thinking. That's especially what I do as I rewrite.
However, occasionally I get back an edit and there's been enough time to distance myself from the story and then I am absolutely horrified about how many times I used "her" in a paragraph, for instance, or how often I repeat a particular word in a manuscript. What's with that? It's like I get that word on my brain and it just keeps popping up.
That's what rewrites and editors are for!!!
I recently finished judging Golden Heart historicals. In fifty pages, one manuscript used the word "zounds" forty-one times and "curst" over thirty. Yes, I stopped and counted. My first concern was whether the terms were historically correct, but after the tenth use of each I figured that wasn't the real issue...
I find reading out loud helps me find overuse of certain words. And I always keep dictionary.com's thesaurus handy.
I have a problem with this, actually, because I try to make EVERY sentence a work of art, which is impossible. I've had to learn that it's okay to have ordinary sentences, because otherwise it's just too much and not only you but the reader will be screaming for mercy. LOL! So now I don't worry over every word like I used to. Because too much is never better.
I love to find perfect words, though, and use the more neglected ones. It's hard to leave all those pretty words to collect dust, but I force myself in order to focus on story. *sigh* This is probably why I write poetry, too. Ha ha! :D
I think Katie brings up an interesting point (Love the image of pretty words collecting dust, btw). Sometimes the stretch to find a "different" word as opposed to a "better" word can work against you. I guess we've all been torn out of a book by a word that seems too remote or foreign or even old fashioned. You are smart, Katie, to understand the audience needs a break from page after page of overwrought, over thought, over embellished sentences.
Alice, I agree, when you step away from something you can always see where you did like a certain word a lot in that one story or that you over used a normal word.
Kendra, there is nothing worse than overusing a word that is unusual. It really sticks out then! In my historicals I try to give each character a descriptive word they use for a word such as Zounds! but I don't over use it like it definitely sounds like this person did. And I always make sure it is used in the time period.
Katie, I agree too many sentences using the best and brightest word you can find gets to be too much. I would say on average, I look for a better word about every two or three pages. And poetry is a great place to use all the best and brightest words! ;)
FYI- 2600 words today! Yeah!!! This looks like a stellar week happening!
Thank goodness for critique partners! Yes, I overuse words--it seems to be one/two/three words in one story, then I switch to other words in another story.
Because I generally write in layers (draft, redraft, edit, edit, edit, edit again, final and polish) I don't worry much about repeated words the first time through. If they catch my eye, I bracket them--or if I can't think of that "sparkling" word, I'll note that in brackets and then go on so I don't lose the momentum of the story.
However, I do a special read-through of manuscripts when I'm doing edits to catch these repeated words, and that's when I have the online thesaurus running along with my manuscript. And, yes, critique partners can be invaluable for some of the more obvious repeated words, as I found out when writing my novella. Ay-yi-yi!
I'm also very aware of using unusual words more than once or twice in a story, because they do make me stop reading and focus on the word instead of the story. So that can be a good tool if it's intended, but can become a weakness if overused.
Congrats, Paty, on the word count for today setting a productive tone for the week!
Great post Paty! I am addicted to certain words--clearly, however, probably, than, sighed, and I have to edit them out.
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