Wednesday

[onegrapeshy]

While I can't totally disagree with Stephen King on this--"I'm not a big fan of psychoanalysis: I think if you have mental problems what you need are good pills" (a combo would be nice)--I do take issue with this particular quote from On Writing:

"Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule."

Comments

[brian_ohio]

I agree. That is the one quote from 'On Writing' that I totally disagree with. My brain can only store like 163 words at a time. That's why God created the Thesauraus. No?

[onegrapeshy]

Absolutely.

We've all read things that sound as if the author yanked every other word out of a BOAT (Butt Of A Thesaurus) (check out some of the stuff in the writing craft section on Writer's Net) (even some published works, though generally not YA, thankyoujesus). I hope SK is primarily directing this quote at them. If not...

Tough.

[mela_lyn]

28 different words used in that sentence... careful, man, you only have 135 left!!

[ex_fashioni]

Heh-- I mention King today in my blog too. And I happened to say that a lot of times, I do find him entirely too self-important, but that he at least takes his craft seriously.

I get what he's trying to say-- in one sentence, he's trying to say that as a writer, you should be well-read, that you should have the tapestry of language available to you without having to rely on an external source. But the problem with putting it within the context of one definitive sentence is that he's not allowing for brain freeze-- that frustration that comes when you've been staring at the manuscript and you know the right word is out there and it's simply failing to come to you at that precise moment.

Plus, I tend to have issues with any "there are no exceptions..." proclamations. It gets my perverse dander up.

[onegrapeshy]

Yeah, maybe he should've stopped while he was ahead.

Although I don't read much SK's fiction anymore, On Writing is my FAVORITE book...on writing. :)

[melissawyatt]

I am forty-five-years old and stressed to the max. I use the thesaurus to remind me of words I can no longer find in the ungodly disaster area that used to be my brain. One of the ways people get into trouble with the thesaurus is when they don't have an understanding of the language and take words from the thesaurus whose meanings they aren't completely familiar with.

[onegrapeshy]

Yes, and come off looking like idiots. Heh, I can do that when I'm *not* writing!

[faerie_writer]

I totally agree with you on that Stephen King quote. I read his book On Writing and that part about not using a Thesaurus was the only part I took issue with. Not only is a Thesaurus good for finding an alternative word, but I can't count the number of times seeing a different word has given me an unexpected (better) perspective of what I was trying to write in the first place.

[onegrapeshy]

Absolutely! Thanks for chiming in.

[lkmadigan]

" ... There are no exceptions to this rule."

I disagree, too.

As I lose brain cells, I need help sometimes.