The Spoken Word

You may remember when I mentioned a couple years ago how I learned how to pronounce "Triquetra." It was thanks to the magic of the "read" feature in Word. Part of the editing process for me includes reading a story aloud to make sure I "hear" any mistakes that my eyes might miss.

I'm listening to the audiobook of Horned Owl Hollow - editing my narrator in a manner of speaking. Making sure she didn't miss something, or change something inadvertently. Overall, she's done an excellent job, but she read one word that jumped out at me - detritus. Is it possible I've never heard the word spoken? I'm familiar with it, obviously, since I used it in the story, but have I only read it in the past? Or have I heard it mispronounced? Before I tagged it as a "pickup," or a change I wanted her to make to the narration, I went to the Google machine and asked it to pronounce the word for me. Hah. Joke’s on me. I've been mispronouncing it all these years. She's right. 

Which brings me to another thing that annoys me. I have one review somewhere, I don't remember for what book or at what outlet it was, where the reviewer accused me of "obviously using a thesaurus and not understanding the words I was finding that were clearly out of context." I'm not going to argue with my reviewers, as a rule, and I didn't respond to her comment, but in this forum, I feel I must. As a reader, you are exposed to millions of words. I have a HUGE vocabulary that I'm careful not to overuse, especially after my mother-in-law pointed out my "big" words in my first book. When I was in school, I used to ace vocabulary and spelling. That doesn't mean I have to use all the words I know or have learned. Detritus might well fall under that umbrella, but it fit, and so I used it. Likewise, for the reader who accused me of consulting a thesaurus and using words out of context, here's my response. Yes, I do consult a thesaurus from time to time, and the reason is generally because I can't think of the word I want. You know, it's like this one, but that's not the right one. I've even been known to Google "what's the word for..." when my mind goes blank. Or consult one of my critique partners to help me pull the word out of the dark corners of my mind. We're not talking "big" words or "fancy" words, necessarily. Just words that are playing hide and seek. And you know what? Sometimes I consult the thesaurus for a "less fancy" word to use. Maybe I should have done that in this case - use "garbage" in place of "detritus" - except detritus seemed a better choice in this case. 

I've finished listening to the audiobook version of Horned Owl Hollow and sent back my "pickups" to the narrator, which means it will be coming to all the audio outlets soon! I've posted up a taste at my website so you can get a sneak preview!