Phonetic spelling and dialect often go hand-in-hand. It’s a way to capture the genuine sound of language but it can be challenging for your reader. When to Write in Dialect Let’s say your character is a Scottish immigrant. In order to establish his unique sound, phonetic spelling is your best bet. This will not only give him a voice distinct from his fellow characters, it will introduce challenges of interpretation. Down becomes doon, no becomes nae. Some characters will be unable to understand a heavily accented Scot, while others will misinterpret his words completely. Why Phonetic Spelling? You want your reader to ‘hear’ the words as your Scot pronounces them.…
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Choose Your Words
Word choice can make or break a piece of writing. When you find the perfect words, they will convey the exact tone, expertise, and information you want your reader to have. Tone Word choice can set a serious or humorous tone. Consider the following: Ricky puffed out his chest and flexed his arms Ricky thrust his chest forward and struck a strongman pose The first example shows preening where the second paints a humorous caricature. A tear slid down her cheek A tear coursed down her cheek One is a trickle the other a torrent. Or consider Spoiled children Spoiled brats Two distinctly different vibes emerge by…
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Hard and Soft Sounds
As a kid I knew the letters ‘c’ and ‘g’ had hard and soft sounds. I just didn’t know there was a rule that would help me. My go-to word was garage. The first ‘g’ was followed by the letter ‘a’ and had a hard sound. The last ‘g’ was followed by an ‘e’ and had a soft sound. Today’s post will discuss spelling and pronunciation rules to help you pronounce new words and spell old ones. Hard C and G The most common sound for the letter ‘c’ is the hard sound. Cat, cost, cut, cry, Christmas, and clip all start with the hard ‘c’ sound. Maniac, titanic, and…
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Things That Fall From the Sky
Precipitation has a specialized vocabulary all its own. Generally speaking, precipitation includes rain, snow, and hail. But each of these has a range of words to describe them. Rain Rain falls from the sky as drops of water. It comes down hard, soft, heavy, and light. Rain has its own specialized vocabulary. It can mist, sprinkle, drizzle, or rain. A light rain is a shower. Heavier rainstorms come in downpours, cloudbursts and torrents. Rain paired with thunder is a thundershower, and is often accompanied by lightning. A rainfall with copious amounts of water is called a deluge and may lead to flash floods. In northern latitudes you may experience freezing…
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Prefixes Transform Words
Prefixes change a word’s meaning. Let’s look at different categories of prefixes. Some prefixes change a word to mean its opposite. Others change a word to indicate repetition. Still others refer to quantity or position in time, movement, size or are related to science or medicine in some way. Opposites One of the first prefixes I learned was un. It is probably the simplest way to change a word to its polar opposite. Comfortable becomes uncomfortable, believable becomes unbelievable. In fact, people will understand your meaning even when you use it to create words that don’t exist. I’m thinking of the words undead and uncool. Another common prefix for the…
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Vocabulary, Building Blocks for Writers
Vocabulary is a fancy term for the words you use. Since words are the writer’s building blocks it makes sense to build a large vocabulary. So how do you do it? Building Vocabulary Vocabulary can be specific to a profession, art form, or region. For instance, to a student, the word site will probably refer to a website, but to a biologist or archaeologist it will refer to a location. Medium to an artist is the material they use to make their art, but it can also be a psychic leading a seance, a size, or the way information is transmitted. And then of course, different regions have their own…
