Semantic Doubt

Drawing from the Well

Queries Sent: 0
Total Queries: 13

Scenes Arranged: 6
Total Scenes: 227

I’m getting close to the Midpoint now. The six scenes I compiled lead right up to it. I need to go back and build in some scenes before this to finish setting everything up, but I’m almost there. I’m excited about the Midpoint because, honestly, it was supposed to be the 3/4 point of the original Book One. Yeah, Book One was WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too long in its original format, when I conceived of this series as a trilogy. I’m excited. I want to get back to writing.

Filling the Well

Elegy: Page 75 of 89
The Devouring Gray: 100! (Book 16 of 25 of #ProjectBookworm2019)
1984: 15%

I’m almost there with Elegy. I’m reading stuff now that I’ve actually played in part in game, so that’s cool because I have greater context for what I’m reading. The Devouring Gray was marvelous. You can see my review here. I decided to start 1984. I’m a little scared of it because it’s one of those books you should read before you die (imho). The beginning is already an interesting take on society and where it could end up. In many ways, in this era of cries of Fake News, it’s where we already have ended up. Thankfully, truth and records haven’t been totally abolished.

Polishing the Well

I planned on taking my kids to see Endgame tonight, but I didn’t buy advanced tickets and now the earliest showing is 8:30pm…for a 3 hour movie…on a school night. SOOOOOOOOO not happening. Maybe Friday. I’m going to look around today. It’ll probably be next week before we see it, though. 😛

Well Chat

Choosing the Right Word

Post #2 in my Doubt Series is about the least intense level of doubt, what I call Semantic Doubt. This is the process of selecting the right word, phrase, sentence structure, or sentence placement for maximum effect.

Now, just because it is the least intense doesn’t make it the easiest. Every level of doubt is its own circle of writing hell. Sometimes words flow like water and sometimes they flow like wood in molasses. The angst in Semantic Doubt is finding your way through it, much like every other form of doubt. You wonder if the word you selected is the best word so you check the thesaurus for alternatives. You’re assaulted by numerous choices that appear as more intelligent, more imaginative synonyms to the plebeian word you chose.

I went through this a lot through the last two edits. My editor, bless her heart for putting up with my manuscript, pointed out a lot of areas where I was just using too many words to say things. I’ve covered this in previous blogs, but verbal efficiency is important. On your first draft, go for it, be verbose, just get the words on the page. In editing, you trim it down. That is typically when this level of doubt shows up. It DOES happen in drafting too, but I advise to let that go and just get the words on the page. Don’t worry about using the same word ten times in a paragraph. You can clean that up in editing.

And that is one method of handling Semantic Doubt: ignore it in the first draft. Don’t worry about having perfect diction on your first try; that is an effort in futility. But in editing, this can get really hard. A lot of authors I’ve seen on Twitter complain about agonizing over a single sentence for over an hour. It’s going to happen. Lean into it. This is your art. You have every right to remain uncompromising on your word choice. So what do you do? Check a thesaurus. If that doesn’t work, go to Google. If THAT doesn’t work, reach out to your editor or authors with which you have a rapport and whose work you respect as “better” than your own and throw your sentence at them, discuss what you’re trying to get across, and that you can’t find the right word. See what they say. You’ll see a theme here: crowdfund your diction. Many heads are smarter than one so leverage the creativity of those out there.

Other than that, move on and come back to it. You’ll get there. Your brain will chew on it until it finds the answer. You’ve got this.

May the tide carry you to safer shores.

BSG