Tag Archive | heart

Author Confessions: Too Much Heart

Sep23
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Author Confessions: Too Much Heart

I’ve been talking about a lot of words but the past few posts were about verbs. Let me spend some time talking about the most overused word I’ve found (and have used in my own writing) in romantic fiction.

Heart.

Her heart raced.

She treasured it in her heart.

Her heart sped up.

Her heart ached.

Because emotion is often centered in our heart, authors tend to focus on that alone when they describe scenes. However, there is an entire body that can react to emotion and the book The Emotion Thesaurus can be helpful regardless of whether the emotion is love, jealousy, anger, loneliness… I highly recommend any author purchase that book and the companion pieces on positive and negative traits.   They are valuable resources. Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi have some more in the series that I just ordered and look forward to having on my bookshelf as resources.

Let’s try some different ways to say the examples above:

“Her heart raced.” Let’s try this instead: She couldn’t catch her breath.

“She treasured it in her heart.” How about: She closed her eyes to capture the moment.

“Her heart sped up.” Maybe instead: She placed a hand on her chest in a futile attempt to calm herself.

“Her heart ached.” Perhaps this: Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked back the tears.

Caveat:

You don’t have to eliminate every instance of the word heart in your prose. Especially when a character is speaking or perhaps texting or writing something. We often tend to use the word heart, but there is an entire physical and emotional body of description to draw on to add depth and color to your story and keep the reader engaged. Avoid writing with too much heart, at least in terms of words. I hope your efforts to put words on the page are filled with an overflowing passion for your work-in-progress.

Author Confessions: Weasel Words

Aug5
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Author Confessions: Weasel Words

Do you have any weasel words in your speech? I go through phases at times where a certain word pops up more often than others. For instance, a few years ago I seemed to be continually surprised at God’s work in fashioning my relationship with my boyfriend (now husband), Ben. I was often heard to say “Seriously?”

This was so automatic that when he proposed, and I realized what he was doing, that was the first word out of my mouth! Seriously? Followed by “Get on with it then!” A funny memory. Of course, I said yes.

Some people have weasel words or phrases almost as a tick or space holder. “I know,” or “Um,” or “Ah,” This can be annoying to a listener when used too often.

As writers we often have weasel words that can creep into our stories. These words don’t really add anything to the story and often are not necessary or can be substituted with something else.

This is not an all-inclusive list:

Just

That

Suddenly

Very

Every

Some

Most

But

OK/Okay

Different genres might have their own as well. Since I work mostly with romance, I find that heart is often way overused in the books when there might be a variety of other ways to express the emotion going on in the “heart” of the character.

As a writer of Regency romances I found the phrase “a bit” would often creep in and was easily deleted without changing anything of value in the sentence or paragraph.

These are simple little words and every author has a favorite. As an editor, if a word keeps popping up over and over and doesn’t need to be there I might flag it for the author or delete some of them. Trying to police these words can be hard because we often don’t even realize we’re reading them. It’s not that you have to get rid of every instance of these words and sometime they are appropriate, hence this becomes a judgement call and subjective.

OK is an interesting one. Pelican Book Group has a house rule where we use OK instead of okay in our stories. What amazes me is how that stands out so much when going over a text. It can become a bug-a-boo or weasel word as well and sometimes as authors we need to find other ways to express what is going on in the narrative or dialogue.

How does an author decide how to get rid of weasel words?  Three questions can be asked to help make that decision:

  1. Will my sentence make sense without it?
  2. Does it sound natural? Sometimes in dialogue it might be better to keep it.
  3. Do I need it? Does it improve or hurt your writing ?

Always go with what is best for your story.

Weasel words are subtle and sneaky but something every author needs to watch out for so that our stories can be as clean and readable as possible. Not always an easy job to do but one that must be done. In speech or in writing, what words tend to be your most used weasle words?

New Life

Apr21
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Yesterday we celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The cross is empty as is the tomb. No body was found in the grave and a living, breathing Lord appeared to some. Those appearances were not simply that he was there and those people recognized him though.

One of my favorite stories, and not often talked about, is the story of two of Jesus’ followers walking to Emmaus. (Luke 24: 13-35) They were heavy-hearted and had not been in Jerusalum to hear the rumors of Jesus’ body being stolen, or that he could have risen. As they walked, someone appeared along with them.  I can imagine that in their distress they didn’t notice a sudden appearance of someone on the road. He wasn’t there. Then he was. And he talked to them and asked them questions and pointed them back to who Jesus said he was. They sat down to dine together that Jesus broke the bread and recalled his own death. At that moment the men knew! It was Jesus! Poof. He was gone.

Isn’t the journey to faith a bit like this? We hear about Jesus and we may even know stories about him, but wouldn’t recognize him in our midst. Jesus came to those two men and showed himself.  It was up close and personal. He never once bragged to them. He wasn’t showy. Nor did he diminish their grief. He listened, comforted them and revealed himself to them. Jesus said in the book of John that he had to go away so that the Comforter (Holy Spirit) could come and dwell within us. We don’t have to look for him on the road once he comes to live in our hearts. But many of use have had to journey and struggle with the truth of Christ before understanding that Jesus was never about a religion or denomonation. He was about a relationship. He came to bring us back into relationship with God. A fallen, sinful humanity, blind to just how lost we are. He reached through space and time (the ultimate Time Lord) and rescued us from our narcissitic folly. When our eyes are opened to the truth of who Jesus is, the veil is torn, the blinders lifted from our eyes and he now walks through all of the highs and lows of life with us.

Yesterday I reminisced about how, 33 years ago, as a spiritually hungry teenager, God revealed himself to me during a Campus Life/Youth for Christ meeting. My journels before that time were filled with prayers and poems and seeking. I served in my church. I wanted so much to know God. But He seemed so distant. Untouchable. Impersonal. That night I learned the truth of Ephesians 3:17: ” . . . so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to  all the fullness of God.”

Dwell in your hearts. Can’t get much closer than that. Sometimes I struggle to live with the same passion of that new-found faith, but hopefully I’ve grown and matured over the past three decades plus three. I’m a new creation. I’m still being transformed and once He took up residence, God has not abandoned me. Even when I’ve struggled, He has always been there. Though others abandon or disappoint me, God stays faithful. When life is scary, God provides for my needs and sometimes, even my wants. When depression looms, He is the rock I cling to. Face it. Life is hard for everyone. The greatest love story though is a man who died on the cross to lead my heart through life and somehow, someway, use a fallen, flawed, human being for His purposes and glory.

That is something to celebrate and treasure.