Analogies and Tricky Words
Writing fantasy, the way we often speak (at least where I live in the United States) comes up for me a lot, and I’ve realized how often I use cliche statements and/or comparisons. Sometimes those are okay, if they fit the world and the characters. When I am writing characters NOT from our world, most cliche statements don’t work at all, so I have to replace them with an alternative that fits the world I’m writing in.
But one almost slipped by me with my latest release, Dark Obsession. Ronan thought to himself that Reina’s brilliance was almost “on par” with Genesis’s. Thankfully, while editing I caught that par is from golf and most certainly would NOT be part of Ronan’s thoughts because golf does not exist in this fantasy world.
I also almost made other silly mistakes with words that are similar to each other. Those darn tricky words don’t register as a problem in my brain, because I know what I meant to write, so that’s the word my brains reads (hence the importance of a good editor).
Once such word swap is that I initially wrote that King Ronan sent a whole continent of guards to bring Reina to the castle rather than a contingent of guards. (Though I’m certain he’d send a whole continent worth of guards for her safety if he could manage it.)
Another similar word with two very different meanings that initially ended up swapped in Dark Obsession? Vial and vile. I promise I know the difference between those words . . . I just don’t pay attention to which I type as I’m writing. I have continued to make this mistake while writing book two.
Another mistake that I did NOT catch before my editor (thank goodness for her): all my world building notes say Tenets of Alchemy, which is a list of characteristics that alchemists feel govern both alchemy and life that they’re supposed to live by. However, in writing the books I put Tenants of Alchemy. To be clear, a tenant is someone who lives inside a building owned by someone else, while a tenet is a principle or belief. I’m so glad the books didn’t go out like that.
One final mistake (which I caught) was me at one point putting ‘Matriarch’ instead of ‘Dowager’. Matriarchs are what the leaders of celestial guardian clans are called in my enchanted races world 😅 I promise, there are NO matriarchs in this world, as this world is entirely separate from the enchanted races. Thank goodness for editing!
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