There are an amazing number of words used to replace the word said. These words can be both a blessing and a curse. The right combination and you feel like you are living in the book. Over-application and you want to pull your eyes out with a fish hook. At least I do.
Today, I tackle howl.
There is a certain gentleman in my life (I may or may not be married to him) who may or may not consider himself hilarious.
There is a strange thing about going "back home" for a weekend. My husband and I may not consider ourselves city people, but our dog is a city dog. She is a city dog who has access to a back yard, thus no sense of traffic. When we go "back home", despite the fact that we are visiting a farm, the dog requires leashing to ensure she does not run out to the highway, meeting an early demise.
It was cold(ish) out and my husband was feeling chivalrous. He took the dog for a walk.
Here is where the plot thickens:
My niece and her friend were having a sleep-over. They were outside (and feeling brave). They decided to talk to the coyotes. My husband decided to answer.
What did he do?:
He howled.
The result:
A couple of shrieking girls tearing into the house.
On using howl when howling is not occurring
The word is often used to invoke the charged feeling of the howl, usually to describe things like:
Loud, joyful - and perhaps manly - laughter.
Loud, broken-hearted crying.
Where is the commonality?:
The volume.
The exuberant expression of emotion (Dare I say raw, animal emotion? - I'm a drama queen).
The I-don't-care-if-you-hear-me-in-face-I-hope-you-hear-me attitude.
My recommended usage of the word howl: I suppose it depends on the situation. Ex. 1 sentence in coyote language requires 4 howls (Howl. Howl, howl, hooowwwwlllll. Yip. Yip.)
My verdict as self-appointed word police (think fun police, only nerdier): only use one variation of howl per chapter (Are they laughing? Are they crying? Are they coyotes?).
What do you think?
3 comments:
I'm definitely not a fan of said-isms. Some work, most distract, and they're almost always not needed (but yes, they still creep into the first draft). I don't think I've ever used howl attached to dialogue, for sure, but in describing volume (as opposed to "Hello there," he howled), it's a good one. You're right though, only under certain circumstances.
I think it's only cropped up once so far in the WIP in terms of people, ie one very awful knife-through-the-hand episode that resulted in some understandably painful noisemaking. As for actual howling, however, I'm actually not sure if it's ever come up. When it comes to wolves and their ilk, I feel like 'howl' is so familiar as to be a bit flat. I'll probably be using it more soon (many descriptions calling for it coming up) but mixing it in among other more useful terms.
The word I overuse is 'smirk,' or at least I used to. Now I try to avoid it, and struggle with alternatives. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that one (she smirked).
Hey Hayley,
I love your comments. In general, I have trouble with said-isms because I can't see them happening. I usually take a pause and think to myself, "what do they really mean by that?", figure it out and move on.
As you can see by my blog, I do like them because they give me something to tease about / writing about them helps me think things through a bit.
Smirk, etc. - Like you, I use that sort description far too often. I've been trying to give more thought about the basic movements instead of the words used to define the movements - one corner of the mouth turning up and such, but it can be just as easy to fill a page with twitchy mouth corners ;)
Stephanie, you've summed it right up! I tried to banish my smirks in the rewrite (One per book! I swore), but now I keep doing twisting parts of mouths, lips, etc, and I get a different picture in my head after a while. It's not a comfortable picture.
I suppose I could go into the emotion side of it, describe what exact mood the expression is conveying, but I feel like that's lazy telling, rather than giving us the body language and letting us read into it.
The search goes on!
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