Day 27: Be Specific!

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash

Okay, we have just one day left in our Writing February month of daily posts. Wow, right? We’ve almost made it through a month of knowledge and prompts and submission opportunities and me in your email box every single day!

Thank you for being here with me. It really means a lot to me and if I think too hard about it, I might cry, so I’m going to move on with helpful things!

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HELPFUL THINGS BEGIN HERE!

So, one of my favorite writing tools that seems super simple but is actually SO important, is this:

Be specific in your word choice.

This is honestly so important, it deserves more than just bold.

When you’re specific, it helps the reader see what you’re talking about.

So, if I write:

• The tree fell down

That allows the reader to imagine:

• What kind of tree

• How it fell down

• Where it fell down.

And that reader? Might be imagining it in a way that doesn’t work for the story.

That’s pretty different from:

• The 237 zombie hamsters heaved and hoed with their twine ropes wrapped around the massive oak tree that had been on the banks of the Union River for more than 300 years and with a creak and a pop and wheezing shake, the oak toppled into the river.

Below the paywall, I’ll talk about why specificity is more powerful than being a vague author, why it matters, and how to train your brain for it, plus a place to submit.

Come join me! xo - CJ