There's a movement in the writing industry to use small, simple words. Is that surprising? I know it surprised me when I heard it.
Aren't we supposed to sound sophisticated? Won't our writing be boring if we use ordinary words?
Read these two sentences and you tell me:
"Mr. Peterson accoutered his burnoose."
"Mr. Peterson put on his cloak."
Ideas should snag people's attention, not our vocabulary.
The new style is to make words as simple as possible, with minimum adverbs and strong action words. People don't run quickly, they sprint, dash and run.
In general, any writing that calls attention to itself must be eliminated.
Does anyone have something to add?
P.S. Be praying for a guy from where I work. He's been hospitalized and for a few days and they still don't know what's wrong with him.
16 comments:
Hm. I don't know. It depends on what audience you're going for. It seems like the requirement for most Young Adult books nowadays is 'make it as easy to read as possible, don't put in big words that they might not understand'. Personally, I prefer a book that requires some thinking and where you might encounter a few words that you need a dictionary for, but not so many that it takes you longer to look them up than it does to read the book. And I would rather 'run quickly' than dash or sprint! :-D
~Kiwifruit
Wow, I like the music on here! it's cool, sounds like a soundtrack for a movie!
Yeah, there's definitely a time to use an impressive vobaulary, like when you're writing for real scholarly type audience. For the most part, use those little words in my opinion.
It sounds like you would really like Dickens! The funny thing about him is half the time it's not the vocabularly that throws me off, it's the things in daily life in Victorian England.
I actually got the music from Narnia. It's what you hear right before the battle.
Yeah, I too think it depends on the audience.
I have one friend who wants the words to be like: "Bob ran to the store." and another who knows the meaning of extemporanious(sp?) and loves to read those kinds of things. I think I am a good mix of both. Did that make any since? If not, sorry! I'm walking in my sleep today.
Never Alone and God Bless,
Indina
P.S.That word means random! lol :)
By the way, I like the music too! How did you put it on there?
(note: i have no computor savvy at all!)
I don't have a problem picking the right words. I have a problem being too wordy. I LOVE my run-on sentences. I don't know if that's just my style of writing or I never fully mastered how to write a sentence correctly. Take your pick. lol.
Debbie
I think that the worse thing is when someone tries to sound wordy and simply ends up sounding idiotic (kinda a picture of myself... ;D). Still, it is a delicate balance between too wordy and far to plain with no sentance variation that makes a novel a novel.
~Elliot
my problem? Commas! I use 'em like they're going out of style.
As for the short words vs long words, that's an age-old debate, I think. I truly believe that it depends on what you are wanting to write.
For me, I like to use "thinking" words when in the middle of the narrative, but not when any of the characters are speaking. After all, who really talks like that?
Cool post. I'll be praying. By the way, what kind of a job do you have, anyway? Just wondering. . .
Sapphira
I work fastfood. It's OK, but it can be high-stress.
I'll mention how to get music on blogs later tonight. I've got to run 2 miles to work now....
Cool! Rock on!
For getting music on your blog, I suggest going to playlist.com.
You have to make an account for free, and then you can select the music you like. That simple.
Wow, do you flip burgers or dunk fries? That is sooooo cool!! Are you a McDonald's dude or a Wendy's dude? Other? I like fast food!
Actually, I work at Chic-Fil-A. I dunk chicken.
That company has got to use the highest quality ingredients out there!
The chicken is brought in raw, we filet it, soak in milkwash, and bread it.
As another example, we squeeze whole cases of lemons to make our lemonade!
The great benefit is that I get Sunday off.
I agree about writing simple words. Call me lazy, but I don't like to walk over to my bookshelf and get my dictionary whenever I write. I may not be the world's best writer, but at least I can look back on my work and understand what I wrote. :)
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