New answers tagged word-choice
1
Sure you can. These are the accurate terms and not just a translation convention.
Person and people
The word "person" doesn't mean just humans and it never has. Definitions for "person" tend to be of the form "something with an intellect and a will, but not too weak of an intellect because that's an animal". Humans are the only kinds of people we see on a ...
0
quaint? im not too sure but i hope the word brings you somewhere
1
Realism is just a style --you're trying to give readers the feel and the flavor of this character, not give them an exact transcription of what his actual thoughts would be. That gives you several possible ways to attack this question:
Present him as though he was consciously addressing an audience unfamiliar with bullfighting, or in other words, as if he ...
0
A lot of us read the Harry Potter books and yet, had only minor stumbles with JK Rowlings' wizarding language. My advice, read a few of her pieces and see how she handled the made up words. NO ONE knew what a muggle was until she wrote it. She even used Hermoine's voice to help readers with pronunciation. If you are writing a novel you have plenty of ...
4
I'd suggest constantly attaching reminders and clues of what things are in a way that adds to/integrates with the rest of the story.
Rather than "waving the muleta at the oncoming bull", it might be something more like "The red silk of the muleta flashed over the bulls head as it made another pass, displacing the bull's charge just enough to avoid gouging....
2
This is the same problem that experts always have when trying to explain their field to the general public. My advice is: don't be such a purist.
I develop software for a living. Computer systems are complicated and we have lots of technical terms. But I avoid using technical terms when talking to people who are not computer savvy. I don't say, "we scan ...
0
Focus on contextual usage and descriptions, and consider the process behind how you learn new words.
How often have you learned a new word by opening a dictionary and reading definitions at random? [If you answer 'never' then you're probably not a geek, and if you answer 'frequently' then you're far geekier than I am...]
Now how often have you learned a ...
0
Hire Josh Brolin.
I am serious.
Thanos lines are quite standard, nothing special. It was Josh Brolin's delivery and interpretation that gave life to the Thanos we know on the big screen.
He spoke with a very deep, sad, tired and sincere voice, and very very very slowly.
Other than that his lines weren't anything special.
https://www.reddit.com/r/...
5
I separate my narrator from my main character's voice. I do not write in first person, I write in 3rd person limited, with a deep POV. (Deep 3PL). Meaning, for those unfamiliar, my narrator knows the thoughts, sensations, emotions and memories of my one main, POV character, (that's "deep") but "Limited" means the narrator has knowledge of ONLY this one ...
8
Focus
Summary: choose wisely the necessary "difficult" words that you need to set the tone, the style and the setting, and avoid all the others.
The absolute basic is that any story can be told with a bare minimum of words. Many suggested reading books for language beginners are abridged versions of literary masterpieces, based on reduced dictionaries of a ...
35
A story like this is about what the MC experiences, and should be told in the MC's voice, but it's also important to consider your readers' experiences as they read, right? This seems like a case where you need to balance the reader's expected knowledge of the subject matter with the MC's. If I told someone a story about what I did at work (and didn't want ...
6
Focus on the character's experience.
Your narrator feels distant from your character and that's why you're struggling with word choice (and I realize you are only giving us short bits from your narrative here). Get in there and tell the reader about the character's emotional state.
He heard a strange noise. Was he curious or freaked out that it sounded ...
0
I once recall way back when Spider-man II (Toby McGuire) came out reading an article talking about what made the webhead the most sucessful comicbook hero in the industry (yes, Superman was not always a reliable seller). What they concluded was the reason is that Spider-man was successful not because of the character, but because he had one of the best ...
14
Thanos is a master of rhetoric.
Some of the earlier answers hint at this but nobody is really getting to the crux of the issue: Thanos is a powerful and persuasive speaker because he carefully uses rhetoric. This is the art of effective or persuasive writing/speaking, the basic principles of which were identified and defined by Plato and expanded upon by ...
4
It is not only what he says, but how he says it. And who he is as a character.
Why do you like Thanos? Because he appeals to your fantasy of an alpha male, an ideal father figure: he is big and strong, but also a gentleman. He can be very soft and caring without seeming unmanly, and he can unleash righteous fury if needed. He regrets having to be cruel, but ...
2
As you say, they are philosophical; and they seem powerful because they seem true and momentous.
I ask you, to what end? Dread it, run from it, destiny arrives all the same.
He is explaining the futility of fearing failure; at least from somebody that firmly believes in destiny. Do what you must, if you fail you fail.
"Going to bed hungry? Scrounging ...
0
Thanos is a narcissist of the highest order.
He speaks in such a commanding way because he believes unwaveringly that his every idea is superior to that of any other being. He twists every action, every event, every failure or victory or random coincidence into evidence that he is right. Because that's what narcissists do!
It sounds to me that you want to ...
1
I'd like to add to Thing-um-a-jig's answer.
The written "voice" of a character has at least three components.
The character's lexicon. This is the unique way a person/character uses words. This is what Thing-um-a-jig is talking about.
The character's sound. This is narrative description that gives the reader an idea of what the character's voice sounds ...
-2
Eliminate everything irrelevant to your message.
Rough example:
Thanos's statements are like philosophical quotes. His lines seem so powerful in conveying a message, yet they are not even very sophisticated.
"Going to bed hungry? Scrounging for scraps? Your planet was on the brink of collapse"
"Your politics bore me! Your demeanor is that of a ...
0
What about something both direct and indirect, like "theUnnamed", "nameless" or "namelesstwo"...
That way we (as readers) could figure out who it is, but still keep within the rules of the story's universe.
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