Packing Heat 003: Choosing Words
Posted by Jordan Castillo Price at 11/7/2007 4:08 PM and is filed under Word Choice,Mechanics,Editing 
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Hi gang! Last episode's assignment: journal inside your document as a way to either warm up or work through a rough spot. How'd it go for you? I was really happy with my results. The story that I used as my example, Verdant, is now available at Torquere Press. I can see the journaling method being somthing that I turn to often, since I'm really a pretty sketchy planner and often lead myself down strange tangents as I write.
Word Choice
Word choice is one the most important tools you've got at your disposal as an erotica writer. Make sure you say what you mean! (And on that topic: there's a part where I say "adjective" but I'm obviously talking about adverbs. Hear what I mean, not what I say!)Your Assignment
Go to a real-world location and look for some details you would have missed if you hadn't really been observing your surroundings. List ten of them. Then pick out some of those details and imagine how they would incorporate into a sex scene. 
My favorite one yet! My day job finds me in customer service, and my job really comes down to the words I choose and the words I avoid. If I'm not careful I can really upset a client/customer just because I use a word that they would find offensive or rude.
For example, I avoid words that evoke an emotional response. Every person on this planet, when they hear a word like "mom" immediately associates that word on a very personal level. For some, it is the most important person in their lives, and for others it can be a source of pain. I can't predict everyone's emotional response to that word, and so it is one that has to be used carefully and in a specific context.
How many songs have been written with the word "Love" in it? There is a deep emotional attachment to that word for every adult, and the context in which it is used is more important that the word itself.
In your podcast the word "padding" is immediately associated with an image that is likely different than the author's intentions, and that word left alone conveys an image to you counter to a situation of an aroused sexual situation. Incorrect use of a mental-image-invoking-word can knock a reader out of the spirit of the scene.
Great job on this podcast!
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Hi Jeremy! Thanks for all your comments! It's really encouraging to get feedback and know that my ideas are clicking with you.
I did customer service for years and years, and it's a very emotionally draining thing. (I have to do customer service one day a month now on a Saturday rotation at my day job, and that's plenty, thank you very much!) It really is a big strain to pick and choose words all day--and tones of voice and body language--that are designed to soothe and comfort disgruntled customers.
I'd forgotten about my riff on the word "padding!" I still think its rampant use is just laziness or thoughtlessness. Writers read about a barefoot character "padding" around, they absorb the word, and the regurgitate it without considering whether or not it contributes to the scene.
I've subscribed to lots of lists where people are promoting their romances, and the excerpts I've been reading...I'm just stunned by the word choice in some of them. And not in a good way! I wonder if maybe stories should get an edit solely focused on word choice? One go-through where the author doesn't look at plot, characterization, structure, or anything other than word choice. "Is this what I mean? Is this the mood I'm trying to convey? Does it pull me out of the story?"
I think that authors sense when a word snags them. I always do. It's like skating across a hardwood floor in your socks and finding a splinter. Sometimes I'll let a snaggy thing get pretty far along before I finally switch it with something I like better. Maybe it's a matter of me not knowing right away what would be better than the first thing I typed.
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