Are You a Word Wrangler or a Sentence Slinger?

We have an amazing language with an abundance of words. In fact, people who learn English as a second language often comment that was have so many words to learn and some have several meanings and spellings to certain ones. However, it seems our extensive lists of words are used sparingly in today’s casual language.

As a writer, I find that I am guilty of redundant words in my writing zone of safety and I usually catch them in rewrites. There are only so many words that describe the perils of a thriller protagonist in a story, so I’m frequently looking to other sources and techniques to freshen up stale and sometimes potentially draggy sentences of the same descriptive words. BAM! I want to hit readers between the eyes with a serial killer character or send chills up their spine in an action escape scene.

There is such power with words and writers have the awesome job of conveying thoughts, feelings, dialogue, and actions in a way to entertain, provoke, or educate.

Words Commonly Misspelled

For writers and many others alike, there are words that we commonly misspell. I remember in school recommend and accommodate were beaten into my mind from the English teacher. I don’t think I’ve misspelled them since.

Acceptable

Daiquiri (How often do you get to use this word in your writing?)

Accommodate

Humorous

Maneuver

Vacuum (I get some of my best creative ideas when I’m doing this chore)

Recommend

Analysis

Check out this site for 100 commonly misspelled words.

Words I find Often Myself Looking up How to Spell

Why is it that I find myself looking up specific words that I’ve used many times?

It’s interesting to test ourselves on writing, but I seem to find that I double-check these words. These stubborn words never look quite right, even though they are correct. Whether I’m writing a fictional novel or a specific report for technical words or fun exclamations, these words make me double-check my spelling.

Hors d’oeuvre

Ta-da

Voila

Bifurcation

Deoxyribonucleic acid (yeah, I know DNA is much easier)

Mitochondrial Deoxyribonucleic acid

Cataclysmic

Formaldehyde

Hemorrhage

Here is a site for all you CSI buffs and crime fiction/mystery writers for forensic terminology.

Words that Make me Laugh

There are many words in our language just by their pronunciation make me laugh. I hardly ever get to use some of these funny words, but I’ve managed to put at least one, sometimes two, in each of my novels, and it’s usually in character dialogue. It’s one of my quirks but I love a challenge!

Mugwump

Lollygag

Doozy

Flibbertigibbet

Eructation

Gobbledygook

Cantankerous

Cockalorum

Smellfungus

You can check out a site for the most 100 most humorous words.

Three things that help to punch up word vocabulary that works for me:

Don’t be afraid to open the dictionary on a random page and pick a word that you’ve never or rarely used, and write ten to twenty sentences using that word.
Pick a word that you find yourself using frequently and write down ten to twenty other alternatives.
Depending upon the genre you write in, pick a word that you think you would never use in any of your stories and write ten to twenty sentences using that word. For example: Flibbertigibbet

What are some words that drive you crazy or make you laugh?

Do you consider yourself a word wrangler or a sentence slinger?

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For more information and listings of books of Award Winning Emily Stone Thriller Series, please visit my Amazon author page.

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