New answers tagged word-choice
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Your question indicates that you are a long way away. Poetry, the poetic, is not about power words (they are for sales and speeches). A lot of classical poetry is about the ambiguity and latitude of language.
"He kissed me in such a pretty way."
No power words here but can you see that a normally visual attribute has be a feeling.
"I wandered lonely as a ...
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Your assertion, as others have pointed out, is incorrect. That's okay, though. I thought it might be more helpful to you to address your "disdain for one-word titles." I would say this is an unfortunate disdain you've developed, though it is borne by an astute and fortunate observation you've had.
There is nothing wrong with one-word titles. On the ...
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Inspired by @Ran Locar's answer, I had a look at all films that came out by year and the (naive) word count of each title.
The dataset I used was this Kaggle set, so if the original question specifically thinks this trend changed in the past two years then this won't help.
However, it looks to me like there is at best a slow trend upwards for shorter titles....
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I think it's about aspiration, about claim-staking, and about self-importance — and, in some cases, ultimately about denying the competition.
The number of one-word titles is far smaller than the number of multiple-word titles; and for a given subject, there are only a few relevant single-word titles. So there's a certain cachet about using one of them. (...
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The following is a VERY naive piece of research.
I've downloaded the IMDB titles dataset (available here: https://datasets.imdbws.com/title.basics.tsv.gz), and took the 3rd column - primaryTitle. I then created a histogram of the number of titles containing each count of words.
One very probable problem is I'm not taking language into consideration; ...
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So keep in mind that much of the English Language Literature on the market (especially modern written novels) is written at an 8th grade (US) reading level, which corresponds to about 13-14 years old. Most English courses beyond 8th grade will read some selections of English Language Classical Literature that may be centuries old and use archaic word usage ...
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As with others, I think your assertion is incorrect. Based on an analysis of the 342 film title given in this list of film releases in 2019, I find that 26% of films have 1 word titles, 32% have 2 word titles, 19% have 3 word titles, 13% have 4 word titles, and the remaining 10% have 5 or more. The longest was 9 words.
This shows a strong preference for ...
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They are inviting comparisons with later works. "Twilight-type vampires" or "Post-Memento sf" are more likely to become a thing than with longer titles.
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Because sometimes expressive isn't what the intent is. Sometimes a creator wants something succinct and punchy, while actually still giving enough away about the setting or premise to be intriguing. Longer titles contrary to your belief are popular, but are not necessarily any more clear, even if they are more expressive.
You also have to remember that the ...
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I am going to agree with Surtsey here. I do not think single word titles are the prevalent. I still think I can answer the question of what are the benefits of using a single word title. I am also going to focus on "Climb" and not "Superhot", as I think the second is just 2 words.
Titles of things are there for the first time impact. You want to hear the ...
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I think your assertion is incorrect. My collection of movies surpasses 400. More titles begin with the word 'the' than are a single world in their entirety. Single word titles promote the noun (part of our celebrity obsession): Superman, Batman, Alien. This encourages franchise and series. Single titles tend to be about noun - verb - noun, how one thing ...
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The reason, as you guessed, is marketing. One word that sums up something memorable about a movie is a mental handle, it can appear in far larger type on a billboard, it eats up only 1 second in a 15 second commercial, it is very easy for people to recognize and associate a single word; psychologically that happens faster.
If I say "Avatar" you know exactly ...
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There's a fine line to be drawn between educating your readers with words that may be unfamiliar and putting them off if you use too many of them.
Consider too how your readers are consuming your content. In a physical book, I'll either infer meaning of a word I don't know from context or ignore it. On a tablet, I'll usually use its ability to look up a ...
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Don't use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily accomplish the contemporary necessity.
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My wife is a children’s librarian, working in a primary school. Her rule of thumb for fiction is a challenging book for children should have between 1 and 3 words per page where the reader is unsure of the meaning. And more is too difficult; fewer presents little challenge and learning.
So there should be some words which the target (child) reader needs to ...
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One approach to this I encountered in the novels "A Series of Unforunate Events" by Lemony Snicket (which were definitely intended mainly for a teenage audience) is to use big words as an example to TEACH them.
For example, the second-to-last book is called "The Penultimate Peril". In the beginning of the book, the author (who is himself a character who ...
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Yes. But also, it depends on how young are your audiences. Search on appropriate words for the younger ones to understand.
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I would say the rule for clarity and conciseness, is if there is a word that isn’t so verbose, use it. If you are just trying to show off your ten dollar vocabulary to the peanut gallery, you are in the wrong theatre most teenagers in 11th grade have the reading comprehension of an 8th grader. I like the idea of the one person of adding it in as a gag and ...
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I don't have any writing experience, but I have extensive reading experience as a child 🙂, and I have a 6 year old who loves reading more than chocolate.
Don't TRY to be wordy, but:
Don't dumb it down. Don't explain.
If the word fits the flow of the story, include it. Any kid who loves reading also loves words, and they can infer an astonishing amount ...
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Klippy, your intuition is correct.
Your audience comes first. It’s the reason why you write the book. It doesn’t matter who else reads it, its only important that it pleases your audience. A pleased audience then tells others about your book via word of mouth (i.e. those outside of your audience). Your audience grows and you earn authorship recognition.
It ...
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You can always put doubtful words in a glossary - a mini dictionary at the end of your book with definitions.
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The easiest way to do this is have a character use it, and another character (like yourself, not knowing the word at that age) ask what it means, or look it up, or otherwise figure out what it means.
You can even use this as a moment of conflict, or humor.
"It's ubiquitous," Angela said.
Kevin frowned. "What does that mean?"
"It means it's ...
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I think this is a really interesting question - because if we avoid using advanced vocabulary with children, then when are they supposed to learn it?
I think the answer is that it's a matter of quantity and proportion so the reader doesn't lose their flow or end up missing something important if they just keep reading, and also of giving the reader the ...
3
Legends can be told in first person.
Some myths from Ancient Greece, sections of the Christian Bible, Biblical Psalms, The Story of Sinuhe (from Middle Kingdom Egypt), and many others are first person narratives.
But you're asking specifically about a first person narrative by the character who is the one who is legendary. The answer is still yes. ...
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The Word "Legend" Evokes an Expectation
Putting Legend into a title is fine, but it's a promise to your audience of something a bit larger-than-life.
Given a title like "The Legend of [Protagonist]", I would personally expect something medieval, with a light touch of magic - like the Arthurian legends, with knights and quests, etc.
But it would depend on ...
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I don't think the "unauthenticated" part is necessary, but a legend is a story told about somebody else, a traditional story, and it can't be a "tradition" if it is being told for the first time by the MC.
In fiction, an original story titled a "legend" is fine, but the pretense would have to be this was done long ago by the MC and is being told once again.
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I'd just use "Snort! blah blah blah etc". I've seen it used plenty of times. As a single word, before an exclamation mark, it's meaning is unambiguous. AFAIK there isn't a well-known onomatopoeic word for snorting.
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I think there are many factors in deciding whether to edit hymns, and there are usually good reasons to take a conservative approach, i.e., if it isn't broken don't fix it.
Religion loves tradition
Religion is extremely conservative in the way things get done; I'm sure there are hundreds of resources out there examining the significance of this so I'm not ...
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Different collections of hymns have significantly different editorial policies. Many modern collections will, for example, change 'we are sons' to 'we are children' so that they conform to modern sentiments about sexist language. Not many people disagree with that.
One hymn book states in its preface that it has removed references to fighting and war as ...
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I agree with the previous poster who said that if you want to use the word “snort,” it would probably make more sense as a verb than as part of the dialogue. That said, I think “pfft” might fit the bill.
Max asked Jill whether she’d finished the homework.
“Pfft. Are you kidding? It’s not due for another week!” She said.
Obviously, this works best ...
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It would look more natural outside of dialog, to me. Unless the character says "snort."
"He's really attractive."
Megan snorted. She grabbed a napkin and wiped the coffee off the table. "Uh, no."
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The language of old hymns is often richer and more poetic than modern hymns, that may be why their language has been maintained. "Bethlem" and "o'er" seem to me like contracted words used to fit the meter of the song that accompanies the lyrics. "Blesséd" may just be indicating that the word is two syllables instead of "blessed" (pronounced "blest"), again,...
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