While we're waiting for the next installment of the interactive story (er, make that, while you're waiting, I'm going to go off and write), how about we try another of the mini-challenges?
One of the tricks of a good writer is to define by context any words that might be unfamiliar to the reader. This is especially common in non-fiction writing that is intended to teach the reader something, but it is not uncommon in fiction either. Lemony Snicket does it in a humorous way: “which in this case means…” Some writers use parentheses and simply define the term, others work it in more creatively.
In Roy Copperud’s American Usage and Style, he suggests defining unfamiliar terms in as simple language as possible and then writes, “It is a good principle not to send the reader to the dictionary, but to send the writer there instead.” The challenge can be making the definition subtle enough so that it neither insults the readers who were already familiar with the term nor breaks the flow of the written piece.
Write a passage in which you use two or three of the following terms and somehow explain what those terms mean or provide a point of reference:
Horatio Alger
Phileas Fogg
Epicurean
Impresario
Peacenik
Sonic wall
Comma splice
For example:
“Epicurean? Epicurean, indeed!” he snorted, “As if the word mean mere gluttony, and not the fine distinction of elevated appetites or the pursuit of intellectual and permanent pleasures to the disdain of fleeting, feel-good tummy rubs."
Your turn!
__________________
Bridgette
"There are seven things that will destroy us: Wealth without work; pleasure without conscience; knowledge without character; religion without sacrifice; politics without principle; science without humanity; business without ethics." --Mahatma Gandhi
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