Posts Tagged ‘words’

Finding the Right Words

Posted: April 6, 2025 in Reflections, Writing
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No other way to say it: it’s important to use the right words when telling a story.

That seems to be an obvious statement, but yet it’s something that needs to be stated. Depending on your audience, the genre you’re writing in, the characters you’re working with, and a dozen other factors, what words you choose when telling your story is important. After all, you can’t use complicated, SAT-level words for children’s literature, and you shouldn’t use too simplistic language for work geared exclusively towards adults. You also shouldn’t use futuristic terms or contemporary slang in works taking place in an old-fashioned medieval setting (can you imagine someone saying in a Game of Thrones book, “Dude! The calculations state that winter is only 7.8 parsecs away!”), and you shouldn’t make children sound like adults in their dialogue, though the latter can sometimes work (do you now how often I use the word “dude” myself?).

But more important than this, is finding away to put your carefully-gathered vocabulary together to keep the story together. At least, that’s how it feels to me.

As you may be aware, I’m working on the third draft of The Shape of Evil, a novel I wrote last year about a 3D printer from Hell. I’m hoping to pitch it to agents at StokerCon in a couple of months, where you actually have the opportunity to pitch novels and other works to editors and agents. And I am working hard to make sure the words in that story are compelling and interesting and work cohesively together for that purpose.

That wasn’t such a big problem with the first and second drafts. With the first draft, the point was just to get it out. To make sure it exists and has some semblance of making sense. And with the second draft, the point was to clean it up so that it wasn’t so messy and so that the future beta readers wouldn’t have too many complaints regarding either spelling/punctuation/grammar or the plot (especially since my protagonist is non-binary and my beta readers were also sensitivity readers).

As you are no doubt aware, I’m working especially hard to make the words in this book be the right ones before StokerCon in June.

But with this third draft, the point is to impress agents and/or editors enough that they’ll want to work with me in bringing this book, as well as possibly others, to publication. And with that in mind, I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself–perhaps too much pressure–to make sure those words come together and work well with one another. Like the gears in a clock, moving with one another in beautiful harmony, rather than grinding against each other to make a messy pile of word-vomit.

Then again, why am I putting so much pressure on myself? As with almost all of my books, especially the ones published with publishers, it took way more than three drafts before it was ready for publication. Usually up to seven! And even then, none of my books were perfect. They were just done.

That’s how my high school English teacher, Mr. G, put it. “No story is ever perfect. It’s just done. You’ve done all you can to improve it, and any more edits will only hurt it. Even so, it’s not completely flawless. It’s just done.”

That lesson has stayed with me fourteen years after graduating high school, and I not only try to keep it in mind while writing, but I pass it on to other writers as much as possible. And, occasionally, I’ll remind myself of that lesson when I’m working on a project and have high hopes for it. Hell, I know that no matter how much editing I do, The Shape of Evil won’t be anywhere near done by the time I’m ready to pitch it.

However, it may be far enough along that, when I pitch it, whomever I pitch it to is enchanted enough, and sees enough potential in it, that they’ll help me get it done. And then out into the wider world. And to that end, I’ll try to keep the pressure off myself, so that this metaphorical clockmaker doesn’t feel like he’s forcing the words into the clock and making them work together when they don’t want to.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I felt like I needed to get this off my chest if I was going to move forward with working on The Shape of Evil. And man, do I feel exorcised of some worries! (Though not of my demons. Those are never going away.)

I’ll be sure to check in if there’s any more news, my Followers of Fear. But until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!

You Can Say a Lot in 500 Words

Posted: April 17, 2019 in Reflections, Writing
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As I said in a recent post, I’ve had to scale back on how much writing I attempt to get done each evening because I try to go to bed earlier. To be more specific, I used to aim for at least a thousand words a night, or about four pages. However, I get tired more easily and need more sleep, so I go to bed earlier. Thus instead of a thousand, I aim for at least five-hundred or two pages.

Which to us wordsmiths can seem like quite the downgrade. One of the ways we measure our progress with our stories is by word count. So when you have to aim for lower word counts every day, it means you make slower progress and possibly make people wait longer for new stories.

However, that disappointment quickly evaporates when you realize something: while getting a thousand words out is nice, five hundred words is also momentous in and of itself. And that’s because you can say a lot in five-hundred words as well (and I don’t mean in the sense that even a small paragraph is composed of thirty to fifty words).

Let’s flash back to last night. I’m working on a story I’ve been writing on and off for about a year now and which I’m barely halfway through. I could’ve let the amount of writing left to do with this story get to me and keep me from getting a single word down on the page. Instead, I started writing. And lo and behold, I got seven hundred words in. Of those, the first five-hundred are about the narrator’s evolving mental state. And even though it’s still only a first draft, it was actually pretty good. I mean yeah, it could use plenty of cleaning up, but it was still a good passage of story, diving deep into what the narrator has been feeling at that point in her life, and how it’s affecting her relationships with her loved ones. Those two pages or so felt really emotional, almost as if a reader would feel the same emotions as her just by reading about it.

And somehow, I doubt that if I was aiming for a thousand words, I could write such a good section. I think when  was aiming for a thousand words, a part of my brain was urging me to rush on, to get that huge number out of the way so I could claim significant progress. The work I did while aiming for that big number was still good work, or at least I like to think so, but it might still be rushed. With five-hundred words, I recognize on some level that I can take my time, there’s no goal to rush to, and that allows me to write better.

And if I somehow make it to a thousand words? Great, I’m just glad I wasn’t panicking internally about getting there in the first place.

Of course, I would like to get to a point in my life where I aim for a minimum of a thousand words a day, but I want it to be under circumstances where I don’t feel so pressed for time and I can really explore the story and the character while working to reach that word count. That might not be for a long time, seeing as how much time in the day I would need to devote to such a goal conflicts with how much time I actually have to write sometimes. But who knows what the future holds?

Anyway, my point is that you don’t need to go crazy trying to rack up a huge daily word count. What matters most is what is written down during that daily struggle to write. If it’s meaningful and tells the reader a lot and sticks in their heads and ignites all sorts of marvelous images, then wonderful. You’re making great progress on your WIP. If, however, you’re getting a lot down on the page but it’s just a lot of fluff…well, that’s what the editing process is for, after all. Get’s rid of that fluff and replaces it with words of substance.

Either way, it sounds like a win-win. And by the way, this blog post is 814 words. Did I manage to say anything of substance in that amount, do you think?

 

And while I still have your attention, I’m still looking for advanced readers for my upcoming fantasy-horror novel Rose, being released from Castrum Press. The story follows a young woman who starts turning into a plant creature (and that’s just the start of her problems). In exchange for an early electronic copy, all I ask is that you read the book and consider posting a review online once it’s released. If you’re interested, please send me an email at ramiungar@ramiungarthewriter.com. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Getting the Ending Just Right

Posted: February 3, 2019 in Reflections, Writing
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Writing any part of a story is difficult. Starting it, the long slog through the middle, trying to wrap it up in a satisfactory way. Any part of it has its own challenges. But lately for me, trying to write the ending–those last paragraph or couple of paragraphs–difficult. I’m not talking about how the story ends, for me that’s usually already in my mind when I start writing the story. I’m talking about the actual words. What I use in the story to finish it out.

Those of us who read regularly think of how stories end, and it’s the most perfect ending, like “and they all lived happily ever after,” only not so cliched and unlikely to happen. More like, “All was well,” or “He turned over and went back to sleep,” or “He reached out to him with a single, terrible, slimy claw.” The words close up the story so well, and it feels perfect. Replace one word or one sentence with something else, and it ruins the whole story, or at least the ending.

It’s those words that close the story out that are so important.

And I’ll admit, with some of the last few stories I’ve worked on, I struggle with finding the right words for those stories. I start to feel too wordy, or that I’m not giving an eloquent closing to the story. Consequently when I end the story, I feel a little unsatisfied. This may be in part due to the fact that I see a movie in my head when I’m reading and writing, so translating something from a mental visual to words is somewhat difficult. Or it could just be finding the right words are difficult. Especially when my brain decides to forget a word or two (kid you not, I forgot the word “agenda” for a week, which sucks because I needed it for something).

Luckily, on a few stories, I think I enjoy the endings of my stories a bit better on the second draft. And those that I don’t, I can change them a bit and that usually helps. But I think–and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only author to feel this way–I would like to not feel so dissatisfied when I finish a story. That the words I use to finish the story ring true to me and feel right. That they’re as close to perfect as “All is well” or “He turned over and went back to sleep,” or “He reached out to him with a single, terrible, slimy claw.”

Well, the good news is that with more practice, I can get more stories done and perhaps figure out what it is that makes those near-perfect endings. Fingers crossed, at any rate.

But tell me, How do you write the best ending for your stories? Is there a trick to doing it? Please let me know, I’m dying to know. Okay, not actually dying, but it would be nice to know.

Until next time Followers of Fear, pleasant nightmares!

12 Different Ways to Say “Unique”

Posted: February 23, 2018 in Reflections, Writing
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I did not finish watching the Netflix show 13 Reasons Why, owing to how depressing it was (I like dark stuff, but that show just took the joy out of living!). But in recent weeks, one scene from that show, a surprisingly not-sad scene, has been coming back to me. In a flashback, the main character Clay is critiquing another kid’s essay, and notices the latter uses the word “unique” several times. When the other kid asks why that’s an issue, Clay says that if everything is unique, it means nothing is unique. And on the surface I agreed with that sentiment, but I didn’t realize how it applied to my own writing until almost a year later.

As many of you know, I recently finished a fourth draft of my college thesis Rose, and that I had the novel beta read by a couple of people, including my colleague and good friend Joleene Naylor. One of the things she pointed out was a problem throughout the novel, and which I’ve been trying to avoid in subsequent stories, is repeating words, especially adjectives. Apparently I’ve been using the word “unique” several times in a single chapter or paragraph, though “unique” wasn’t usually the word I used.

Actually, it tended to look something like this (not an actual line from the novel, but I think you’ll get the idea):

Rose stood in place, refusing to show her fear. Angrily, Paris placed the book on the table.

See how I used “place” twice? A better way to write this might have been:

Rose held her ground, refusing to show her fear. Angrily, Paris placed the book on the table.

See the difference? And I had to do this throughout the fourth draft, identifying where I repeated words in close proximity to one another, and then coming up with a better way to say it.

And I feel like this is a really common issue that writers have to deal with at some point, or possibly at several points, in their careers. Despite our reputations for loving really big words (verbose, callipygian, penultimate, etc), when it comes to fiction, we tend to just use everyday words. After all, we’re normally writing for everyday people, not for a small niche of scholars or people associated with a small religious movement. So if a simple word, like “unique” or “place,” fits the bill for telling the story, we’re likely going to use it. And we’ll use it again and again, if it’s the first word that comes to mind.

But as the above points show, you have to vary what words you use in order to tell a story and not distract the reader. And that’s something I’m trying to learn how to do as a writer. You know, along with learning how to write good short stories. And writing good stories in general. Again, I leave that up to the feedback of my readers. But this is getting a lot of emphasis as well. Because as great as a story is, the language it’s told through can determine how successful it may be. Imagine if Harry Potter had been published and it read like a sixth grader had written it. I guarantee it wouldn’t be the phenomenon it is today and I might not have been inspired to be a writer (unless JK Rowling was in the sixth grade when it was published. Then she’d be the Mozart of literature).

So while I may never actually need to know twelve different ways to say “unique,” hopefully in the future I can avoid making mistakes like the ones above. And if I do (because let’s face it, no author is perfect), I hope I have a good group of editors and beta readers around me to point out those mistakes.

And if you’re an author who makes this mistake, the only way I can think of to avoid it is to do what you’re already doing: think about the words you use. Just do it a bit harder when it comes to the individual words themselves. At least, that’s what I’ve been doing. And I think it’s been working.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. Expect another post from me (or maybe even two) very soon. Until next time, pleasant nightmares.

Rose: Two-Thirds Through the Third Draft

Posted: August 28, 2017 in Novel, Progress Report, Scary Stuff, Writing
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Wow, thought it would take at least a couple more nights for this happen. And again, it’s like an hour before I’m supposed to go to bed! Ooh boy. At least if I’m tired tomorrow morning getting into work, I’ll have a good excuse as to why it happened.

For those of you who don’t know, Rose is a novel I wrote as senior thesis in college, and which has had quite the crazy time just getting edited (click HERE to read my last post on Rose for more background on this crazy time). The story follows an amnesiac girl who wakes up one day and finds herself suddenly turning into a plant creature (and that’s just the start of her problems). It’s as bizarre as it sounds, but also very dark. Not as comical as it might sound if I were to tell you about it at a party.

As I’ve said before, the last time I tried editing this story, it took me months just to get through a couple of chapters. Now, it’s been just over three weeks since I last posted an update on Rose, and I’m two-thirds of the way through the story. The latest chapter, I managed to get done in one sitting, in only an hour and a half, with a cup of tea on my bedside table and a New Age spiritualism lecture on YouTube to keep me focused on the writing. Consider my normal writing/editing speed, I consider that a really big deal. May the last seven chapters be as easy to edit as this chapter.

Though to be honest, I’m really enjoying the editing process. The story feels new to me, like I’m discovering the characters and twists for the first time as a reader. And going over it, seeing where the descriptions can be expanded or the language brushed up and improved is a pretty satisfying experience. It’s going to be really interesting to see what happens in the last seven chapters, which contain some of the biggest revelations of the story, and most of the scenes I’m looking forward to expanding/making better.

If I’m lucky, I’ll even be able to make good on my thesis advisor’s suggestion to add about ten to twenty-thousand words to the novel (or did he say  double the novel? I forget so much in my young age).

Speaking of which, time for me to annoy you with page and word counts. At this point in the second draft, the number of pages in the novel (8.5″ x 11″ paper, 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced) was a total of 103, with the word count measuring up to 32,765. In the third draft, I’ve expanded the story to this point to 137 pages, and 42,768 words. That’s an increase of 34 pages, and 10,003 words. I think I’m doing quite well. The second draft was only a couple thousand words longer than where the third draft is now, so once I expand it, I could get it beyond sixty-thousand or maybe even seventy-thousand words. That would be pretty incredible, wouldn’t it?

Well, I’ve probably taken up probably enough of your time and/or phone data. I’m going to head to bed and savor this milestone as I sleep. Goodnight Followers of Fear. Pleasant nightmares!

Rose: One-Third Through the Third Draft

Posted: August 6, 2017 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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It’s unusual that I give an update on draft progress when I’m in the middle of the third draft. Usually after the first draft, I only give updates when the draft is finished. However, given the unusual journey and evolution Rose has gone through, as well as the all the work that still needs to be done, I feel that giving an update at the one-third mark is warranted. Let me explain:

I began work on Rose during my senior year of college as my thesis project. I had been sitting on the idea for about a year by that point, and had done quite a bit of thinking into what sort of story I wanted to tell. I started in September 2014, went back and started all over again when I realized the direction I was going in was all wrong for the story, and then finally managed to finish the first draft in January 2015. I then banged out a second draft in time for thesis discussions in April 2015. At those discussions (which you can read more about here), I was given a number of suggestions on how to improve the novel for the third draft, after which I could probably start thinking about publishing.

One of those suggestions, which I did not mention in the post about the discussions, was that I add a whole lot more words to the word count. Like, ten to twenty-thousand words more.

Yeah. I know. Even seasoned authors might find that a difficult challenge to accept.

In any case, I planned to get back to this story eventually, just not immediately. I first went to work in Germany, and then went through the job search. During that time, Rose was never far from my mind, but I never felt it was the right time to work on that story. After I got my new job and moved into my own apartment though, I did feel like revisiting the story. And I utterly floundered trying to edit it. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, moving had entirely changed my routine, and without being able to get that routine back, I was unable to edit as I used to. Thus, it took me three months just to get through five chapters. After that, I had to stop and reevaluate what I was doing if I was to continue writing at all.

And then two months ago, deciding I needed a break from work on Full Circle, I began working on Rose again, even though I thought I wouldn’t get to it until after my Boston trip. With a new routine in place, I managed to get through the five chapters I edited last year in weeks rather than months. And then I got through Chapter 6, and then finally Chapter 7, finishing edits on that about an hour before I left to go see The Dark Tower.

And now I’m one-third of the way through the book. And it feels almost like I’m working with a totally different story, like this is the first go-around with Rose rather than the third draft of (and the fourth dive into) the story. Hence why I feel it is necessary to write a progress report at this point in the third draft.

So if you’re new around here, you’re probably wondering at this point, “Okay, but what’s the novel about?” To put it simply, Rose is about an amnesiac girl who finds herself turning into a plant creature. It is as bizarre as it sounds, more bizarre than I remember it. But it’s also a very dark story, exploring themes like abuse and dependence in relationships, as well as how truth, falsehood, and memories shape our perceptions of our ourselves and others. So yeah, as bizarre (and possibly comical) as it sounds, it is still a scary story.

And I have to say, editing is going very well. I’m incorporating as many of the suggestions from my thesis discussion as I can, and I’m definitely seeing an improvement in the story. The characters definitely feel like they’re actual people in this strange situation, and I feel like if this book does get published, people will really respond to it.

As for that suggestion to add ten to twenty-thousand words, I’m actually doing okay with that. I’ve thought about scenes I’ve wanted to expand, and I’ve even looked ahead to certain parts of the book to see where I can make some additions. And in the first seven chapters, I think I’ve done a good job of that. Let me break down the numbers (already I can hear my longtime readers groaning about that, they know I love to do this): in the second draft, the first seven chapters measured up to 44 pages (8.5″ x 11″, 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced) and 13,579 words. In the third draft, I’m at 70 pages (same parameters) and 20,990 words. That’s an increase of 26 pages and 7,411 words. And I like to think none of it is unnecessary.

So what’s next? Well, I’ll get to work on the next fourteen chapters, and hopefully be done with the end of the draft by the end of September. I’ll also try to add another three-thousand to thirteen-thousand words, if I feel that amount would help with the story. After that…I’m thinking beta readers, more editing, and then maybe an agent/publisher. We’ll see.

Well, it’s late, so I’m off to bed, my Followers of Fear. You have a pleasant night and pleasant nightmares. Until next time!

A Summary of This Year’s NaNoWriMo

Posted: December 1, 2016 in Living and Life, Novel, Progress Report, Writing
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The NaNoWriMo logo/coat of arms.

Well, it’s December 1st. That means a couple of things: start of the holiday season and prep for the new year, the days get to their shortest point, I try to push a tag with the hope that it will become a trend (so far, it’s been hit and miss with those I’ve tagged). For writers around the world, however, it means National Novel Writing Month, and assessing how each person did and how their manuscripts turned out.

I’ve actually always found National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, full of strange contradictions. For one thing, it takes place around the world, but it’s kept “national.” Heck, even the month’s official website puts you in touch with participants from all over the world! Why don”t we change the name?

For another thing, it’s amazing how many authors take this challenge seriously. For those of you who don’t know, during the month of November, many writers try to write a fifty-thousand word novel within 30 days (that’s about 1667 words per day if you want the math). And I’ve seen so many author friends on Facebook and in blogs lament how they only got so many words down. “I only got eight-thousand words.” “I was so close to 50K!” “This NaNoWriMo sucked! I hardly got any work done.” I don’t even want to know what they thought of the material they wrote.

Just for clarification, there’s no actual prize if you write a 50K novel in 30 days. You just get bragging rights. But plenty of authors see it as a reflection of themselves if they can’t get the words down. And I actually kind of understand this: on nights when I didn’t write anything down (and those nights occurred quite often, sadly), I felt like it was some sort of reflection on my skills or on myself as a writer. It didn’t matter if there just wasn’t enough time before bed, or if I had a book I really wanted to read, or if I just didn’t feel like writing that night. I felt bad. Maybe not as bad as I could have felt, I have a day job that takes up a good chunk of time, so I at least have an excuse for why I’m not writing more. But I bet for those who write full-time, it could be very frustrating when they didn’t reach their goals.

So how did I do, now that we’re on the subject? Well, I knew that with a job and that unfortunate habit of sleeping seven hours a night, plus eating and bill-paying and grocery shopping and everything else that goes on in my life, I had only so much time to do any work. Therefore, I decided that I would keep my expectations reasonable. I decided that I would aim to get ten-thousand words done, and if I got past that, I would aim for another five-thousand afterwards. If I somehow managed to get past that, I’d aim for five-thousand more, and so on and so forth. The result was I probably felt less stress than my colleagues, and I consequently met my first goal, and got more than halfway to my second goal.

To be exact, I got 13,821 words down by the end of the month, about four-and-a-half chapters worth of story. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to do it. How did it turn out? Well, I guess as well as a first draft can turn out. I mean, it’s only in the subsequent drafts that novels actually become the brilliant stories we all hold so dear. During the first drafts, they’re like pre-Fairy Godmother Cinderella: full of beauty and potential but in need of some serious clean up. My own NaNoWriMo project, Full Circle, has a lot of good stuff in it so far. It’s the third book in my Reborn City series, and considering that I started this series about eight years ago, this novel is already showing my growth over that time the most more than any recent story I’ve written.

Still, I think Chapter 1 could use a lot of clean-up. There’s a lot of exposition there, so making it work with the real storytelling moments is important. And possibly the prologue could use some polish as well. Yeah, I included a prologue with this book. New thing for this series, but I think it’s good for this book. Just needs some edits.

In the meantime though, I still have an entire novel to finish, and it’ll probably be a lot longer than 50K. I’m hoping that I can finish it by mid-spring 2017, and have it out early 2018 at the latest. We’ll see what happens.

Well, that’s all for now. Unless there’s something worth posting about, I’ll try to put out a Writing/Reflections-themed post out at some point during that month. In the meantime, it’s writing, writing, writing, and hopefully a lot of it.

Until next time, my Followers of Fear!

The Evils of Our Words

Posted: February 4, 2016 in Living and Life, Reflections
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I read an article on BuzzFeed yesterday that really upset me. According to the article, emails from the University of Chicago’s chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, a historically Jewish fraternity, had been released and revealed a culture of racism and Islamaphobia within the chapter. The N-word was used prolifically, Muslims were called “terrorists” or “towel heads”, a vacant lot next to the fraternity’s house was called “Palestine”, and some of the brothers turned MLK Day into “Marathon Luther King Day”, celebrating with drinking and eating at a fried chicken place.

Over the past couple of years, stories about fraternities and some of the disgusting things going on within their walls have been coming out. Every time I’m absolutely disgusted, but this one hit me in a number of ways. For one thing, I have friends who are part of the Ohio State chapter of AEPi. They are good people, upstanding young men connected to their heritage and active in the broader community. To think they are in any way associated with this scandal just horrifies me.

Alpha Epsilon Pi’s University of Chicago branch is in deep trouble for the emails that have been uncovered.

But that’s only one level that this hit me on. Because this story also brought back memories from when I was young:

I went to a Jewish overnight camp from fifth grade to tenth grade. During my last year or two there, I noticed a disturbing trend among the boys in my year. Swearing was a regular part of camp culture–even the counselors swore on occasion–so saying “shit” or the F-bomb didn’t make me bat an eye. In fact, I reveled in it. We were being adult, we were being naughty. It was great.

But then I heard my friends calling each other “n***er”, and occasionally “faggot” or “fag”.

Understand, there were no black kids or staff on the camp, at least not as far as I know. This was also well before I realized I was bisexual. And my friends assured me their black friends were cool with it.

Even if I believed them, I still told them that I wasn’t comfortable with it, that they shouldn’t say it, or at least not around me.

Maybe it’s because I was bullied a lot back in the third grade (most of it verbal) and it left a big impact on me, but I’m sensitive to when people use words to hurt others. Especially those words. As much as words only have meaning if we give them meaning, these words do carry a meaning bred in deep history, and the meanings are not easily separated from the words. Every time a white person uses the N-word, they’re saying that African-Americans are lesser beings, second-class citizens and do not have the same rights as people with light skin. Every time someone calls a Jew a kike (like when, after a soccer match between my all-Jewish high school and a school of mostly African-American Christians, the opposing team began using the word after they lost the game and things nearly came to blows), that someone is calling the Jewish people a strange people, a parasite that takes money and power and killed the Christian God. Every time someone calls someone else a fag, they’re saying that there’s something inhuman or strange or obscene about being LGBT. And every time someone–not just a fraternity brother–calls a Muslim or a Palestinian a terrorist, they’re saying that entire religion is incapable of being peaceful, that their whole goal is destruction. That’s all completely wrong, and there’s not excuse to use those words.

Even if I had been as eloquent then as I am now, I doubt that would’ve swayed my friends, because they continued saying those words without any care to my feelings. Even when the head counselor of our year had a discussion with us one evening about how disgusting we were being. Even after, while on a field trip to the city, my friend said the N-word and it was almost overheard by a passing black man. They just went on saying all those nasty words and by doing so, they were saying it was okay to say words charged with prejudice and not care whom it might hurt.

For the first time today I wondered if any of my camp friends ended up at University of Chicago, and then at the school’s chapter of AEPi. Those camps have the effect of bringing Jewish teens closer to their heritage. Maybe some of my friends went there and brought some of their bad habits with them.

Believe it or not, this is some of the nicer things this sort of uncaring attitude can lead to.

The only time I approve of those words are when they’re used in mediums like literature or film to illustrate a particular time period or mindset, like in Huckleberry Finn or even in my own Reborn City. The rest of the time, there’s no good reason to say that trash. Not only is it hurtful to the people those words denote, they are harmful to the people saying those words, desensitizing them to the effects of these words. At best, that leads to dumb crap from fraternities and doddering old men in front of cameras or near cell phones. At worst, that leads to hate groups, violence, and lynchings or shootings in churches.

My hope that in the wake of this scandal, people–especially students and teenagers–realize that you can’t be blase about saying the N-word or calling people terrorists because of where they’re from or what their beliefs are. They’re hurtful. They’re damaging. And I hope that maybe the backlash these students will get will teach them and others what happens when you’re not cognizant of the feelings of others.

And I hope my friends from those long ago days aren’t members of that fraternity, and that they learned long before this what your words can do to themselves and to others.

Why I Lost Two Facebook Friends Last Night

Posted: February 20, 2014 in Living and Life, Reflections, Social Activism
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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I do not tolerate negative language meant to denigrate a person because of their race, gender, orientation, or ability. So when I see someone using this sort of language flippantly or carelessly, I usually tend to avoid that person. If they’re a friend though, I’ll try to convince them not to use that language before I cut them off.

Last night I was forced to do just that. Someone I’m acquainted with at school was responding to people lamenting about Facebook buying some app or another. He thought it was hypocritical that they were complaining about it on Facebook and said they should reevaluate their lives (though he didn’t phrase it in such nice terms). Where I got upset was when he used the word “retard”. I’ve mentioned before that I have an autism spectrum disorder and I’d been called “retard” or “retarded” more than once by bullies because I didn’t understand certain social boundaries or conventions when I was younger. Not to mention that mental retardation (or intellectual disabilities, which seems to be the preferred term among medical professionals these days) is an actual medical condition, so using it as an insult hurts the people with actual mental retardation worse than it hurts the people having the insult hurled at them.

I asked my friend if he would not use that word because it has the potential to hurt people. He responded that he was using the word without negative connotations and that people should realize that (as if we’re mind-readers!). He also said he uses racial and other denigrating terms, including the N-word, and said he uses them without the negative connotations and that it’s my problem if I was insulted by it.

At that moment another friend of his, whom I’m acquainted with as well, joined the thread and started using the very same terms we’d just been discussing. At that point I decided to leave the conversation, unfriend the both of them, and go to bed (though not before coming up with an idea for a short story based on this experience). And it’s still on my mind, as this blog post makes evident.

The thing is, even if they think they’re not using the words with their negative connotations, it’s not so easy to disassociate a word or symbol from its negative meanings. Otherwise the swastika would still mean good luck and auspiciousness rather than Nazi Germany and the Holocaust as it does for many Westerners. And these sort of microaggressions can have terrible effects on the people being denigrated. If you’ve never heard the term “microaggression” before, there’s a great blog post on microaggressions that explains them in depth. If you don’t have the time to read it though, a microaggression is basically the everyday little forms of discrimination that minorities experience throughout their lives. An example is the continued use of saying “that’s so gay” as a way of saying something’s stupid. It is not only bringing down whatever is being called gay, but it is saying that there is something wrong with being gay in the first place. And while the basic definition of microaggressions means they are small, especially when compared to gay-bashings or other forms of assault and more obvious forms of discrimination, over time they can build up and cause stress, depression, or suicidal thoughts in the person being denigrated.

Personally I only ever use these sort of terms in stories in order to portray a character the way I want him or her to come across to an audience. Even then I hesitate to do it and seriously consider whether I should really use such negative terms and if there is another way to get across the full impression of the character. That’s why within all of Reborn City, a novel about gangs divided mostly on racial lines and with a white supremacist gang, you’ll only see one instance where I use the N-word and other racial terms (though I do have several characters call Zahara a “terrorist” in order to illustrate how ignorant and prejudiced the world of RC is against Muslims).

So when I see people using these sort of terms so flippantly, uncaring about the negative consequences of these words, I get pretty upset. These terms are attacks on people because they’re minorities, and because my former friends are white or deeply tanned and don’t receive discrimination for their skin color, gender, sexual orientation, or level of ability, they don’t necessarily realize the damage they’re doing by using these terms. And by calling the rest of us oversensitive for being upset that they’re using these words, they’re proving that they’re insensitive to the problems of others, not that we’re oversensitive.

So I finish this post urging people to really think about the terms they use. You’re not being cool or rebellious by using terms that bring down minorities. What you’re doing is hurting people and causing people to think you’re ignorant or bigoted. If you’re going to use them, use them in a way that won’t hurt anyone, such as using the N-word in Huckleberry Finn is used to illustrate the beliefs of that age towards African-Americans. Or these words can be used to fight discrimination: there is a growing body of literature, music and other media that uses these words to show how hurtful they are and possibly change the way people think. Slowly but surely, some people are changing the way that they think.

That is all for now. I hope my former friends learn that using these words has negative consequences. Especially the guy who actually happens to own an up-and-coming business. How many businesses have failed because of something the owner has done? I hope that doesn’t happen to him someday.