Choosing the Right Words for the Scene: Subtle Changes Can Make a Difference

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

This week's Refresher Friday takes an updated look at how a single word or phrase can alter how a sentence reads. Enjoy!

It always tickles me how a single edit can dramatically effect a piece of writing. The power of language and how we choose to wield it is what sets one writer apart from another. It's in our voices, our styles, and how we tell our tales.

Mark Twain famously calls it the difference between lightning and a lightning bug, but it's more than that. The decision to use filter words versus not, to use description versus internalization, to embrace a character's voice or the author's voice--these choices all shape the writing in unique ways. It's also why ten writers can take the same premise and create ten different novels. Just look at how many re-tellings exist, from Romeo & Juliet, to fairy tales, to stories that all draw from the same thematic archetype.

The words we choose matter. It makes a story ours.
Continue ReadingWritten by Janice Hardy. Fiction-University.com