Fiction Scribe

“What’s the word… Oh, what’s the word…”

How many times have you found yourself on the search for the perfect word? Sure, there is another one that means the same thing, but it’s not *the* word that you’re looking for. Your writing can halt for a few minutes as you circle the similar word and move on or it can halt for hours – even days – while you sit and ponder that perfect word…

Just the other day, a bit of dialogue had me stumped for a minute. “Dangerous” was too strong a word for the woman to use with what she was talking about, but I needed something that meant the same thing at a less intense level.

I went with ‘risky’ and moved on.

Had I not been able to think of the right word after a minute or two, I would have written ‘dangerous’ and then circled it – my writer’s symbol for ‘this needs to be different’. However, when I was younger, I would let the search for the perfect word stop me for hours. That is, until I met the thesaurus and became addicted…

Are you having trouble with becoming tongue tied and/or thesaurus addicted?

1. Put the thesaurus down. A thesaurus is only to be used in emergencies. The more you use a thesaurus to get your writing done, the less it’s going to sound like your ‘voice’ to the reader.

2. Trust your own voice. Don’t try to sound like anyone other than you because if you do, it’ll only lead to frustration and more tongue-tied pauses.

3. Keep moving. Do whatever you have to do to keep your pen moving. Don’t let ‘perfect’ word searches slow you down because you’re mind will recognize that as a way to avoid writing.

4. Remind yourself that this is just the first draft. I know I have said this one many times in previous posts, but it’s so important to remember if you want to take the pressure off and keep writing.

Words are beautiful things, but like other beautiful things, they can also be distracting. Don’t let them trip you up.