A Wintry Mix of Words

Kate Flora:. I love words. Growing up, we always had a dictionary near the table so we

And somehow, the necessary words are found

could look things up. No cell phones or Alexa back then. Part of the fun was discovering what other words were on the page beside the one we were looking for. We played word games. My brother John punned until everyone screamed. We were readers. Mom was a writer. We couldn’t get away from words, nor did we want to.

This week, well, for the past two weeks, when I’ve been able to escape from holiday tasks, I’ve been engaged in a job that makes me hate words: cutting 5000 words out of a manuscript so that an editor will read it. This isn’t the “cut out those boring passages” or the “this scene isn’t necessary to the plot’ editing. This is word by word, sentence by sentence, tightening things up. It has been excruciating. Now the end is in sight, and I’m seeing my writing differently. So I admit it has been a good exercise. Just painfully slow.

But today’s blog isn’t about cutting words. It’s about choosing them. It’s fun to choose the right word for a description or a scene. Winter’s first real storm on the horizon is a good time to think about words for winter. So I dig out my trusty Rodale’s Synonym Finder (a book no writer can be without) and begin to read.

I am looking for the word “Winter.” It isn’t here. Happily, I find “Wintry.” It leads me to delicious choices like hibernal. Hiemal. Brumal. Cold. Frigid. Freezing. Ice-cold. Shiveringly cold. Icy. Frosty, snowy, arctic, glacial or hyperboreal. Then on to Siberian, inclement, stormy, blizzardly, windy, bitter, nippy, sharp, piercing, biting, cutting, brisk, severe, rigorous, hard, and cruel.

Does this make you want to pick up your pen? Are you, like me, a writer who loves lists of words? Who thinks it would be fun to create a character who actually uses words like hyperboreal, brumal, or glacial?

If I read on, the book offers me lovely dark words appealing to a crime writer, particularly one who is writing during the dark months in a cold New England landscape. Here are some tasty words to sample over your morning coffee: bleak, desolate, stark, cheerless, gloomy, dismal, dreary, depressing, unpromising, somber, melancholy. How about dark, gray, overcast, sullen, or lowering? These words pretty well fit the woods behind my house, which are textured shades of browns and grays and have been since the leaves fell in November.

When I go looking for “hibernal,” it isn’t there, but “hibernate” pops up at me, the perfect thing to do during the month of January. Hibernate leads to: lie dormant, lie idle, lie fallow, stagnate, vegetate, and estivate. Perhaps more fitting, for those of us who find these winter months perfect for sitting at our desks and listening to the voices in our heads, there are these: withdraw, retire, seclude oneself, go into hiding, lie snug, lie close, hide out, hole up, sit tight.

I am pretty much holed up, lying snug, and secluded. But I love the almost song-like rhythm of:

Hide out

Hole up

Sit tight.

These six words would be an excellent writing prompt.

The grays and browns of winter

Which leads me, since playing in dictionaries and thesauruses is part of a writer’s fun, to the far more positive word: snug. Try these lovely words on for size: cozy, intimate, comfortable, easeful, restful, relaxing, quiet, peaceful, tranquil, serene, informal, casual, warm, friendly, inviting.

I am reminded of the snug in an English bar. Snug also suggests secret, private, covert, secluded, well-hidden, screened off.

So while you are reading this, I am secluded, screened off, and well-hidden at my desk, a space which is cozy, warm, and inviting. And once the delicately eviscerated manuscript has been laid to rest, I shall turn my back on the hibernal, bleak, stark, cheerless landscape outside. I will call up a new project that suits the new year. I will:

Hide out

Hole up

Sit tight.

And probably proceed to kill someone, or at least put them in serious jeopardy.

What are you doing on this dark and somber day?