Do BIG words make your book better?
Don’t be pompous and look for 20 letter words when 6 will do nicely. (See Defining Something)
Do long sentences or paragraphs make your book herd to read? (Sometimes called verbal diarrhea)
Don’t bore your readers with exhausting narrative. Give them a break to catch their breath.
Do you care about whether the Flesch-Kincade reading level suggests your book caters to a Grade 5 reader?
Some “experts” suggest that a good portion of the population reads at a Grade 5 to Grade 8 level.
If you’re writing a textbook or your audience is post-secondary school, BIG words might be necessary.
Does your poetry or prose need a multitudinous retinue of latent nebulous personally conceptualized lexis, acronyms, or definitions to understand, interpret, and demonstrate your newly acquired glossary, direct from the thesaurus?
A two-position kinesthetic, harmonic, vertically oscillating, pre-teen, occasional use-parental discretionary device, to instill limitations on secretions of sodium laced facial ductile waste, resulting from abrupt conclusion of linear movement by the ischial tuberosity.
When you mean to say Seesaw or Teeter Totter
An erudite individual micro-organism charismatically endowed thesaurus advocate, with a dynamic vocational aptitude, for dispensing and elucidating nouns and verbs to craft wondrous scenes in written or vocal formats.
When you mean to say Writer.
A most profound and prolific expostulation of extraordinary, composed example of verbiage.
When you mean to say, that’s good writing.
Military . . . Science Fiction . . . Romance . . . Historical . . . Fantasy or a combination. Remember your target audience and cultural differences.
Innocent words in one language might mean something derogatory in another language.
Language is ever evolving. We often use slang, phrases, idioms, acronyms and other visual clues to express our feelings, or where speed or brevity is the top priority.
A common mistake is that we presume everyone knows the meaning or expression. Many have become the norm in everyday conversations.
IDK, LOL, ROFL, LMAO, and hundreds of others are popular in texts and emails.
CYA (Cover your Ass) and Cya (See you later) same letters different meanings.
Many others are specific to hobbyists, such as amateur radio, QTH (my home/your home), QRZ (Who’s calling me) and QSL ( Received, or Did you Receive).
The way we speak or write sentences isn’t always in tune with the brain.
Trying to get the whole story out in one breath (or paragraph) before we forget.
Examples
Witness statement:
The incident happened when the wheelbarrow ran over my toes, four I think, on the second floor.
What was meant:
On the second floor, a wheelbarrow ran over four of my toes.
Witness statement:
Buddy was arrested and then he was hung. We put him in the ambulance, as just before he had tried to get out of the way while falling, the roof caved in.
What was meant
When the roof caved in Buddy tried to get out of the way. We rescued him from his fall arrest system and put him in the ambulance.
Random Plot Thoughts
Hats, Armour, Bully-Pushover, Ruts, Performance,
Power/Accountability, Tradition, Practice, Team, Rules
If you explore plot thoughts and ideas; could you tweak yourself just a bit, to be a more productive?
Some of us prefer to hang around in the background, following the herd, not getting caught up in controversy or negotiations, simply because the stressors add to our already busy schedules.
There is no ‘cookbook’ solution to writing a best seller. We all work and play hard, some more than others, due to our background, training, experience and learned behaviours.
Obstacles present themselves at inopportune times, challenges appear and disappear, friends/colleagues move on. Every one of us has an innate ability to erect our personal armour, or wear the thinking hat, to deflect or retard the stressors, and still find time for writing.
The KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), of 50 questions across 10 domains, are about random ideas, for seasoned authors, journeypersons and newbies.
Try to implement some indicators into your work. You can mix quality and quantity in your daily conversations and interactions.
Remember, these ideas are real ideas, mixed with random thoughts and a bit of humour.