{"id":11484,"date":"2025-07-29T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11484"},"modified":"2025-10-06T11:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T15:24:08","slug":"every-words-a-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11484","title":{"rendered":"Every Word’s a Choice — Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Last week, I gave a presentation at a writhing workshop sponsored by the Public Safety Writers Association\u2014an organization for public safety professionals (police, fire, EMT, military, etc.) who write and the authors who write about them. It\u2019s a great group for any crime writer because you can get all your procedure-strategy-mindset questions authoritatively answered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think I took a different tack than the \u201cgrammar lesson\u201d people may have expected, and instead focused on words, using the best words, and using them better. Words are our smallest writing elements, and I started with this quote from Mark Twain:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter\u2014it\u2019s the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next few weeks, I\u2019ll be posting some of the information and resources I assembled for the workshop, but first I\u2019ll answer a basic question: Why focus on such a small unit of our literary output? I focused on the words we writers choose, because they are fundamental to improving our skill as  writers. They are fundamental to making that connection with our readers that keeps them turning pages and coming back for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the information in this series may be in the category of \u201chelpful reminders,\u201d like the chime that reminds you to fasten your seat belt. Some of it may be new, or at least strike you in a new way. And all of it, I hope, builds your appreciation for the magic you create when you write your stories. Think about it: You go from a blank sheet of paper to something with meaning and impact for your readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve come to realize that the black squiggles I put on paper are only half the job of writing. All readers, with their assumptions, experiences, understandings (or lack thereof) perform the other half. They\u2019re what bring my work to life and allow it to entertain, inform, and, sometimes, reflect. Pulitzer-Prize Winner Robert Olen Butler says the author\u2019s job is to set up a dream, then author and reader experience the dream together. Grammar errors, poorly chosen words (even typos), jolt readers out of the dream, and they may not come back. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words are how we authors communicate our thoughts, our emotions, our stories. There\u2019s no body language or tone of voice to clue readers in to what we were thinking when we wrote a particular passage. For that reason, we need to take our words seriously, so that we evoke in our readers the feelings and understandings, the tension and the resolution we strive for. Words are our tools. Above is a word cloud of my presentation, the tools I used that day. How long is that new story, that book? 85,000 words? 90,000? Well, then, the author has 85 or 90,000 chances to get the words exactly right!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope you\u2019ll go with me in the succeeding weeks on this \u201cEvery Word\u2019s a Choice\u201d journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I gave a presentation at a writhing workshop sponsored by the Public Safety Writers Association\u2014an organization for public safety professionals (police, fire, EMT, military, etc.) who write and the authors who write about them. It\u2019s a great group … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[174,51,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-words","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2Ze","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11484"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11604,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11484\/revisions\/11604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}