We as writers love words. Of course we do; where would we be without them? Personally I have loved learning new words since I was a kid. Even to this day I still learn new ones every so often. Sometimes I even find myself slipping a new one in here and there when I’m talking. Or even using a word just because I hadn’t used it in awhile. Sometimes I get weird looks if it’s a word that one doesn’t normally hear in a relaxed conversation but I can’t help myself, so let the weird looks happen lol.
In regards to writing I try to mix up my vocabulary there as well. You don’t want to constantly use the same words throughout you novel on a repetitive basis. Some of the biggest issues I find when I read other stories are the he’s and the she’s, or in other words, the pronouns. I’m not going to talk too much about pronouns right now but they are some overused words that need to be used a little less or in other ways. Mix it up with your characters name or find a creative way to change the beginning of the sentence to avoid four sentences in a row with he or she. Again, I will address pronouns in a later blog post from now but they are examples of needing to mix up a vocabulary in a story.
Obviously your vocabulary may change based on the year in which you are depicting in your novel. Depending on the era or decade you may have to do some research on how they spoke if it’s a period in history. There’s nothing worse than reading a historical fiction and having the characters sound like they speak in modern ways. So do yourself a favor whether you are a vocab nut like I am or not, do the research to both, look up alternatives to words that are over used, and words for the time period you are writing in.
Along with my book notes that I keep written all over the place, of story ideas/notes for my current work in progress (sometimes known to be written on napkins or even wrapping paper lol) I also keep notes on words. If I’m out and about and over hear a word or am having a conversation with someone I write down said word. If it’s something I don’t hear often or it inspires me in some way I want to make sure I remember it. My husband is quite used to me grabbing my phone or something really quick to write a word down and barely reacts when I do lol. I ask him sometimes if I seem a little crazy when I do that and he just says ‘No, it’s just you being you’.
Words like these for example….
- Nuance
- Aghast
- Overzealous
- Mauve
- Opaque
- Proclivity
- Somber
Those are excellent words that are just a small portion of what I’ve kept written in my notes to remember to use somewhere. On the flip side of things you don’t want to overwhelm the reader with a very full vocabulary either. People want to be at ease and in the comfort of reading something. Not be shocked out of the world you created for them by an overuse of words that make them pause to sound it out or think on it for awhile trying to remember if they know what it means because they don’t normally hear it.
I’ve talked about that before with the names of characters. You have to find that happy medium so your readers are not overwhelmed. But where they still feel trusted to understand what you are trying to say and don’t get bored with the very same words used over and over again.
I know it can be difficult at times because as writers, we like to write like we talk sometimes. As in if it’s been a long day with your day job then you come home and try to write but your brain is as tired as you are. So the length of your vocabulary is limited to what your mind is allowing you to access in it’s exhausted state lol. Moments like that happen, so when I get to the editing stages I fix it then. That’s the beauty of the editing process, there’s at least four rounds of edits that most of us go through so we should be able to fix things later…or so we always hope. (It’s amazing what we still seem to miss sometimes lol)
Back to the point I was trying to make, that words are a beautiful thing so why limit what you use. I try to make a point to show my love for words through my writing, as much as I can. We are Authors, so words give us the ability to express ourselves through our stories, our blogs and any other social media platforms that we use. Let’s make use of the words that our ancestors have given us throughout the years and appreciate our abilities to create worlds with them.
Thank you for reading my blog.
Until next time….JUST KEEP WRITING.
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Tiffany’s Writing Journey 