Loving Words

I've been thinking, writing about love... romantic

love, is one of the most difficult things to write about and write about well.
Ok I've got two characters, Alice and Joseph. They've been married for 3 years, but together for 5.

So what next?

Does Alice come home to find Jo reclining gracefully infront of a coal fire swirling red wine in a crystal glass, beckoning her over to him with that seductive glint in his eyes that she knows so well and that made her fall in love with him that summers day in that meadow surrounded by those wildflowers? No.

Why not? Because people can't relate to that. I know people who fell in love because they were drunk one night at the same houseparty, because they worked in the same warehouse, went to the same school, through the lonely hearts column. No meadows there.
I fell in love because it was the last night of the play that i directed, and i was sad and drunk, and there was only person who's solution to the problem was to cuddle me, and that was the Assistant Stage Manager, who i'd held a grudge against for months because he said he didn't like my Eagles Of Death Metal T-shirt.

Every couple's "How We Got Together" story is stupid, filled with little insignificant details, that make people regret they asked for. But that's what makes them believable.

So if Alice and Joseph met because Joseph worked behind a bar, and Alice went in there one night and they just got talking, it's more believable because it's boring. But does that make for good writing?

As for love scenes themselves, it's all too easy for Jo to say in a deep baritone "come over here baby, i'm going to give you a back rub." But does that actually happen?

Basically what i'm trying to say is that i'm stuck. I don't know how to make this couple convincing without making them sound like they're in a 70's porn film. And what i'm lacking is those daft little things we say to eachother when we're in love. The silly little games and conversations you have that you find hilarious, but others find repulsive.

So should i even put them in? Do i want my readers to cringe? I dont think so.

I tell you what. This writing malarkey is much harder than people make out!!!

Big Words

I've never done a blog before... it's really quite hard to get started.

In class today (MA Creative Writing), one of my classmates wrote a piece about giving evidence of a murder case in court. I raised the point that she used a lot of medical jargon but didn't isolate me, as a reader, from the piece. I made my point, and then the conversation went in a different direction, which left me thinking...
I read an article on the BBC website last week that reported that some internet company or other, has decided that there is a new word, the millionth word infact, which is (drumroll) "Web 2.0"....

right...

but that's not a word is it? "Web" is a word. It has been for quite some time, but "2.0" is numbers and a decimal point isn't it...? Anyway, the dictionary people have said that it isn't a new word (thank god!!) so i presume we're still on 999,999 words, which has been giving me panic attacks. I've got a new word. I'm trying to spread it around:

Lithaloo


It's a word my brother invented and it describes the back of your knee. I think it works.

Anyway the point i was going to make about that BBC article was this: in the article they (the dictionary people) said that a fluent English speaker knows between 20,000 and 40,000 words. Crikey. But then that got me thinking. That means that someone like me might only know 20,000, but someone like Stephen Fry might know 40,000! That's a big gap. Actually i don't even know how many words i know. That could be my PHD thesis. I'll probably find out that i only know about 2000 and then the government will decide i have to be sterilised immediately to avoid contamination of the human race.

I'm writing a dystopian novel. Can't you tell?
I've decided to go ahead and keep working on it because i've had a few encouraging words from my tutor, and she's a proper writer and everything, so my head has swollen to twice it's normal size and tomorrow i'll get back to work on in with all the enthusiasm i originally had for the project... although to be honest i probably won't even get out of my jammies.

I've gone off on a massive tangent now. My point was going to be this: i've realised that when writing, you can't keep fretting over whether the register of language you're using is going to isolate your reader and make them feel stupid. If you did that, you'd have to worry about the people who know twice as many words and how you could potentially bore them by "dumbing down" the piece. Just write what feels natural to you. If you feel uncomfortable with writing big words, don't write them, or get a dictionary out and find out what they mean. Whatever you do though don't worry too much about it, you'll only flatten the writing.

Saying that, i have just spent the last 10 minutes redrafting a blog... and i had to ask my fiance how you spell "tangent".

Oh but if you want to read the BBC article for yourself it's here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8092549.stm

feel free to vent!!!