Writing Discussion 5

[kriadydragon]

They're ba-ack!

If anyone is curious as to why I haven't touched on some of the suggested topics it's because some of the topics are rather fanfic centered and I want the discussions to be centered around both fanfic and original fic.

Tonight's topic is on wording, word choices and using words in a way that makes your story flow and holds your reader's interest.

I start with this question: Have you ever read a story that A) even though it was well written, interesting, the content superb and agreeable, something about the story still managed to give you a headache or B) have you ever read a story that though well written and interesting, made your mind wander more often than not and you wished the author would - to put it bluntly - shut up already? I just finished a book not too long ago that actually did both. Though it was good, it just kept going and going and going... yes, the plants have special powers, we get that already. To quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Get on with it!

And also this question: have you ever stopped reading a story for something as trivial as, say, the author's choice of words? I have. I believe it was because of the gratuitous use of the word giggle. I don't trust stories written by people who actually think grown men giggle, and said men are neither drunk, drugged, insane or ten years old.

Now on to the topic question - how the heck to avoid all the above mentioned pitfalls?

Comments

[tj-teejay.livejournal.com]

I am loving the Thesaurus too, though most of the time I use my English/German dictionary for that rather than an actual Thesaurus. But I guess for me that's more of a unique situation, seeing how I seldom write fiction in my native language.

It's not that I "translate" in my head what I write from German to English. I write in English and the words form in English (otherwise writing would not work like this, I think). But every now and then, I'm not sure about a word or an expression -- if they have the right feel for the situation, if they mean what I think they mean. Often my gut feeling is right, but in those cases, I usually go to LEO (http://dict.leo.org) and look the word up.

And in a way, I can use the dictionary as a Thesaurus by clicking back and forth between the German and English words. Sometimes when you click the German word that feels right to use, it'll offer you other English words that mean the same or a similar thing. And then I take my pick for what I think fits best.

As for overuse of expressions, yeah, I have that problem sometimes, and I'm sure it's coupled with the non-native speaker thing. My active English vocabulary, while probably being way more extensive than the next German's, is still a lot smaller than my passive one. Well, that probably applies to German too, but I still get annoyed at myself sometimes for getting stuck on expressions and words and descriptions that I feel I keep using too often. That's when it helps to have a good beta reader.

[kriadydragon.livejournal.com]

but I still get annoyed at myself sometimes for getting stuck on expressions and words and descriptions that I feel I keep using too often.

This drives me crazy, especially if I can't find the words or expressions that could replace it to break the repetition.