The Right Words

All writers have a process they employ when working. After a few stories, I've developed my own. I write until I hit a wall. At that point, I set it aside for a few days and work on something else.

When I go back to that story, I take a day or two to revise or edit it and part of that process is to print it out. A lot of writers never read their stories in actual print on paper but I find I catch things I would never catch on a computer screen. That's just my own personal quirk.

And here's where we arrive at the word issue. I read the story aloud and circle every word that doesn't quite convey the meaning I want. A synonym is not an exact match usually. And I'm picky enough that I really try for the exact word I need.  When I'm alert, most pages have a lot of red scribbles. When the pages begin to have only a few marks and circles, it's time to put the manuscript away because I'm missing stuff.

My first pass--the one where I'm actually putting words on the page--is my "get it down while the brain is still working". I use very simple verbs to convey action, knowing that I'll make a second and third pass. So while the character might walk across the field in the first pass, he might stomp across the meadow in the second pass, or depending on how the story comes together, he might race across the weedy pasture in the third pass.

There are any number of authors who have extensive education or are widely read or simply have an affinity and love for words. They are fortunate. As I've aged, I've discovered a loss of vocabulary. It's distressing because I KNOW the word is out there somewhere. But I can't locate it in my muddled brain.

Enter The Synonym Finder from Rodale Press. It's not a thesaurus. It's an enormous book that lists synonyms in a dictionary format. Exactly perfect for me. I already know the meaning for the word I'm seeking.

When I use a particular word in a sentence, that's because it's the best word I could find to convey meaning. How about you? What's your stance on word meaning and use? How do you decide what words to use?

anny

Devouring Words

Have you ever noticed how with some books you zip through the pages and others you read much more slowly? Some stories drag you along at a breakneck pace. Others allow savoring of the words.

I'm not advocating that either type is better. It's just an observation. I have the notion that the fast kind is sort of like eating candy. In a short time, you find yourself dissatisfied and hungry again.

Whereas the slower one is a three course meal, something that sticks to the ribs and fills you up. Over the last three or four weeks I've read both kind. And I've even read a couple that were so slow they put me to sleep.

I suppose the trick is to find the in between ones. Something to savor, but not somnolent.The fast ones don't seem to allow time to think. Then later, when you're considering the story, you wonder why different points weren't solved or explained.

Book size doesn't seem to have anything to do with what type of story it is. I've read really long books that were one adventure after another. Those are the ones almost tailor made to be a movie. I've read others that were very short but offered a lot of food for thought.

What's your favorite type of book? Short? Long? Fast? Or slow?

anny

Throwdown at the Pool

Last week my granddaughters and I went to the pool. Normally, there aren't very many people there but on this particular day, it was unusually busy. After a quick dip I found a spot in the shade and read one of the stories on my Sony reader while the girls had fun playing with their friends.

When we'd been there about an hour, a fight erupted between two young teenaged girls in the pool. I'm not talking about a little sissy fight with them splashing water on each other. This was a champion throwdown with hair pulling and shoving. They were holding each other down under the water.

I must say I've never seen the head lifeguard move that fast--not because he can't, but because he doesn't usually need to. Anyway, he took life and limb in hand and separated the girls. Then he escorted them to the end of the pool where the steps were. As they reached the steps, one girl decided she wasn't finished with the fight.

She went around the lifeguard, after the other girl. Again, he separated them. Nope, she still wasn't finished. So he bodily lifted her out of the water, carried her across the width of the pool, set her on the side and told her to stay there.

In the meantime, her target climbed out of the pool, dried off and called her mother. Then until her mom arrived, she sat quietly waiting.

Now you might ask what in the world precipitated this fight. And the answer was words. One girl admitted she didn't like the other girl very much because she considered her rude. So the other girl attacked her physically because we all know that's the best way to win friends and influence people. Right? Right?

And if at first you don't succeed by beating someone over the head, well try, try again until they're cowering in submission. We can speculate all we want to about the influence of television, music, and movies on the way our kids behave. But the truth is our children usually model their behavior on what is acceptable in our home. If violence is the first solution in every instance, then that's what our kids will use.

At fourteen, this young lady has already settled into a pattern that will govern the way she relates to people around her for the rest of her life. I find this rush to violence very disturbing.

This fight wasn't precipitated in self-defense. It wasn't even started in the defense of someone else. It was initiated by a young woman who didn't like the words she heard.

What happens the next time she doesn't like something someone says? Will someone die because she refuses to stop?

anny

The final word

Yesterday on a chat loop, Kelly asked for assistance with a word she couldn't think of. There were many suggestions. Finally she asked me to check my Synonym Finder. Before I typed the possibilities, someone else came up with the correct word. Yay, Cindy!

In my comments yesterday, another fellow writer commented that there weren't very many synonyms for the word deep. For ha-ha's I looked it up. Here's what the book had to say:

deep, adj. 1. immeasurable, bottomless, fathomless, depthless; extensive, broad, wide, far-reaching, vast, massive; retreating, yawning, cavernous, abysmal; submerged, sunk, sunken, on the bottom; buried, in the bowels of the earth, subterreanean; deep-seated, deep-rooted, inmost, out of sight. Inf. way down.
2. sagacious, sage, wise, learned, knowing; penetrating, discerning, perspicacious, shrewd, astute; artful, subtle, designing, scheming, devious, cunning.
3. profound, extreme, intense, great; grave, pressing, urgent, critical, vital, important, significant. Inf. heavy.
4. difficult, unclearn, obscure, abstruse, esoteric, recondite; impenetrable, inexplicable, incomprehensible; secret, hidden, mysterious, unfathomable, concealed; enigmatic, mystical, sphinxlike, occult.
5. absorbed, engrossed, preoccupied, rapt, inten, involved, entangled; immersed, plunged into, lost in, swallowed up, occupied, engaged.
6. rich, full, big, strong, powerful, heavy, solid; full-toned, resonant, sonorous, bass, basso; rumbling, booming, resounding; guttural, growly; dark, intensified, vivid, vibrant, vigorous, full-bodied.
7. earnest, sincere, serious, sober, somber; philosophical, thoughtful, reflective; heartfelt, poignant, fervent, ardent, impassioned; intense, deepfelt.
--n. 8. bottom, depths, deepest reaches, bottommost point; depth, profundity, extent, vastness, abyss.
9. culmination, central point, midpoint, middle, midst; silence, still stillness, fastness, recesses, remotest point.
10 the deep Chiefly Literary. the ocean, the sea, the seas, the high seas, the seven seas, main, the ocean blue, the waves; briny deep, Davy Jone's locker, Neptune's kingdom.
--adv. 11. profoundly, intensely, deeply. See deeply............The Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale

There you go, Jae. Just a few alternatives to deep.

Sometimes I get lost in that book. One afternoon, I looked up various colors. There are an astonishing number of words for colors. There were over fifty for the color red--and that didn't take into account the other ways we use the word red, such as embarassed, or as a reference to the old Soviet Union.

One time, I went looking for an alternative to the word desire. That entry is over a quarter page long... and yet the the precise word I wanted wasn't there. But there were a couple of words that were close so I looked them up. Three entries later, I found the exact word I wanted. That word that would convey the precise meaning I was looking for.

Sometimes I will read something I've written months or even years later and think how did I know that was exactly the right word for that sentence? I don't remember the time I spent searching for the right word. But when I read it later, I notice that it's there. I wonder if readers ever notice the words? Do they realize that the sentence would be less if I used a different word there? I don't know. What I do know is that for me, it will niggle and irritate me until I hunt down the perfect word.

Perhaps the apostle John said it best, "In the beginning was the Word..." John 1:1

Anny

Pop over to Amarinda's Place for her take on the Saga and other observations about life at www.amarindajones.blogspot.com and then check with Kelly Blog to see what she's up to today. Maybe she's teaching ants to toe dance? www.kkirch.blogspot.com Blessings on your day!