Saying It Differently

I was flipping through Facebook when I happened on a post in a writer's group. In honor of Halloween this month the person wanted people to post what they do for a living but make it sound scary. I told people I rob people as the voluntarily hand over their money. I manipulate their minds and drive them to alcohol fueled bad decision making before sending them off to beg for the chance to be a victim once more. As many here know, I deal table games in a casino on the Las Vegas Strip. There is nothing honestly sinister about it but it made me stop and think about the way we say things and how the words we choose can have a strong effect on how we are perceived.

I write a number of different genres and it can be difficult when I am editing a romance to work on getting a few thousand words in on my current thriller then jump to working on the synopsis for my historical fantasy and finally move on to t-shirt design with humorous themes. I can be hard to come up with different words to use but sometimes it isn;t the words at all but how they are arranged. Most of us have used or at least heard the phrase, "It isn't what you said, it's how you said it." That one little phrase could be a mantra for writers.

We are always so careful to pick just the right words to express our meaning but at times we forget about the tone of the story, the mood of the character and all of the non-verbal cues that can be used to help demonstrate our message even more effectively than the words themselves. In many ways this falls back to the term "Show, don't tell". It is better to take the reader along n an emotional rollercoaster ride and have them experience what the character is going through then to simply state what is happening. I personally prefer a combination of the two.

I am working on the showing part. Whenever I find myself explaining things to my reader I step back and ask if there is a way I can demonstrate it instead. I also do my best to find words in dialogue that lead to visceral reactions. I want those words to have wight. It is my goal for the reader to see the character driving down the highway on that windy, rainy night. I want them to feel the rumble of the engine as the character pushes the accelerator a little too far for the weather and the way the tires slip just slightly on the slick turn. Hear the howling wind outside the windows and know the heat inside the car isn't the air blowing from the vents but the white-hot rage as the guy behind the wheels mutters half finished thoughts of revenge. I don't want the reader to take an aerial view of this scene but sit in the passenger seat and grip the dashboard for dear life.

Sometimes it is easy to get caught up and forget that words are a writer's friend in every sense. We have so many options when using them and it is fun to refresh some of those styles now and then.