Just One Word

Last week, I inadvertently joined what became a heated debate on whether or not writers should use a Thesaurus.  I’ve got to say, I love my Thesaurus.  So much in fact, that I accidentally bought a second, identical one, because I couldn’t remember if I’d kept mine, or if I’d left it at my parents’ house.  

Using it is almost like a scavenger hunt: I have to search for the exact right word for my writing.

Who knew there were so many different words for blue?

Despite my love for the book, I can also understand the caution used for writers.  There’s that desire to sound sophisticated, or judicious, or sensible… oh wait.  Those don’t all have the same meaning.  When I use a Thesaurus, I search for a word I already know.  Usually, I’m writing, and my brain shorts and for some reason, I cannot think of the word I want to use.  I know words that are similar, but they’re not quite there. 

I know firsthand the difficulty of finding the exact right word.  I also know that the wrong word can alienate a reader forever.  It doesn’t always have to be a sophisticated word either.  Any word can be wrong.

When I was younger, my mom liked to read any books that she bought before any of us could – to make sure that it didn’t have anything that she didn’t want us to read.  As I got older, she couldn’t keep up with the number of books I read, and she started to have me read books before allowing my sisters to read it.

I remember one particular series she had me read.  It was set in Colonial America, just as the revolution began.  There was one sentence, one word, that pulled me out of the series, and even now, over a decade later, I still remember it.  Not because it was written so well, but because in my opinion, the author had used the wrong word.

A soldier visited the family of a girl he’d fallen in love with, and as a token, he’d given the mother two silver candlesticks. 

“Thank you,” she said.  “This is totally unexpected.”

Totally?  Did they use that word in Colonial America?  I don’t know, but if the author had used completely, or even very, I probably wouldn’t remember it to this day.  But I do, and when I think of the series, I think of the word ‘totally.’

Now that’s a lot of pressure for writers.  One single word can ruin a book, or in my case, a series.  So it doesn’t matter if we use a Thesaurus or not.  As long as we get the right word, that’s all that counts.

Quantifying My Productivity

Last year, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time.  (Short for National Novel Writing Month.)  It was one of my most productive months, and I think the biggest reason was because I kept track of my progress. 

I love to write, but at the same time, it’s so much easier to procrastinate.  The NaNoWriMo website has a tracker that allowed me to write my word count for the day and I could see the progress throughout the month.  Last month, I participated in Camp NaNoWriMo, where I could create my own word count goals and add them together.

Later, once I finished with my word count goal, my productivity tanked.  It’s not that I really pay attention to word count, but I love seeing a visual representation of my progress.  I attempted to set something up in Microsoft Excel, though I really don’t know how to use the program well enough to do anything really helpful.

That’s where my sister comes in.  I told her about my attempts, and being the genius she is, she was able to set something up that I absolutely love. 

I thought I’d share it here, so that if any of you are Excel gurus, you’d probably be able to set it up yourself.

 She started out with two columns - One for the daily word count, and the second column automatically adds them all up together.  (Something about auto sum, I think.)

Obviously, I don't write daily, and since I've been working on revisions on paper, I only update word count once it's typed up, which is why there's 6000 on some days.  (And the beginning of this month was not productive at all, hence all the zero's.

Then, she added graphs (and showed me how to make graphs) so that I can see the progress throughout the month. 

Awesome, right?  She's definitely talented at what she does.

Do you pay attention to word count?  How do you quantify your productivity?

Word Verbosity

Have you ever hard the phrase, “If I had more time, it would be shorter?”

I tried looking up who the quote came from, but it looks like it’s attributed to quite a few people.  I had originally thought it was from Mark Twain. 

It’s a phrase that I never quite understood.  Most of my first drafts are bare bones.  I have the structure, but there’s no furnishings.  It takes me two or three more drafts to put the actual details into the story.  Which is why my first draft is usually hovering just above 50,000, but once I get to a finished MS, It’s usually about 75,000. 

But I had a recent experience where I finally realized what this meant.  I had to write something nonfiction, something important, and I didn’t have a lot of time.  In fact, I only had about an hour and a half before I had to submit it.  It took me about that long just to write it.  However, I noticed something strange.

As I’m trying to get all of my ideas down, and sound professional, my writing became incredibly verbose.  All of a sudden, I was using five or six words to describe something that only needed one or two. 

And the words I used!

It became harder and harder to read because the words I used were longer and less common.  Maybe it’s because I felt like it needed to sound professional.  Maybe because I didn’t have time to think of a better word.  Either way, once I finished, I knew that it was way over the top.  The writing wasn’t thought through, and it showed. 

When writing a novel, I work on getting the story down.  I don’t care about the words, the tone, anything else.  Most of the time that comes naturally.  But when I’m writing to impress?

Whew.  I need to give myself more time to edit.

How about the rest of you?  Do you have to add or cut after you write a first draft?

The Power of a Word

Lately, I’ve been thinking about words.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been so focused on my query and trying to make every single word exactly right. 

As a writer, I have to remember that each word can have a power that even I may not realize.  No matter who we are, there’s always going to be specific words that have a personal meaning and bring up memories or opinions. 

As a nurse, there’s one specific words that I absolutely never want to hear.  It’s probably not the one that you would think.  In nursing, the worst word you can use is “quiet.”  I don’t like to believe that we’re a superstitious lot, but I’ve experienced firsthand the power of that one single word.  I remember the nights when I get report and the nurse before me tells me: “Everything was really quiet today.”  That’s when I know that my night is going to be miserable.  And it always is.

Even the way a word is used can affect a person.   Think about the term ‘retard’.  I have heard some people who use it as a joke or a putdown and don’t realize how personal and offensive it can be.  But if they were to understand what it really means, what it can do to those who really struggle with prejudice due to the use of that word. 

Or think about the power of the words: "I have a dream."  Do you know who said it?  What does it make you think of?  There is power behind that phrase, and Martin Luther King Jr. knew it.

As I was working on my query, I had the phrase “do something.”  As I was revising, I changed it to “act”.  Just changing a phrase into one single verb, I found that the entire sentence became much stronger.  While editing and revising, it’s important to pay attention to every single word and the power that they bring to the sentence and the story. 

What words have a specific meanings for you?