Make Sure Pretentious Words Don't Turn Off Your Readers

Yesterday I read a story that made me want to run to the dictionary several times. I didn't but the strange, long words kept pulling me out of the story.

Granted, the pretentious words were only in the hero's dialogue so that was obviously done on purpose as part of his characterization.

Still, there were so many pretentious words I didn't like him and wondered why the heroine would be interested in such a snooty, boring man.

Yet, I love good dialogue. I love to spice it up with different speech patterns and words for each character.

When I began writing, however, I went overboard with dialogue myself. Too many strange words or saying is worse than too little. If the reader has to go to the dictionary chances are they won't come back. The chances increase each time they must do so. If I'd been reading a novel instead of a very short story, I wouldn't have finished. As it was I was tempted not to.

We walk a tight line writing. We want our dialogue (and everything else) to sing in harmony.
Be mindful of too many pretentious words (or silly words or dialect).



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Snippet Saturday: Dialogue

Today's Snippet Saturday theme is "Dialogue".

I love writing dialogue. Several of my critique partners tell

me that dialogue's my strong point. I particularly love to write

dialogue for very different characters.

In the excerpt below from American Beauty published by Ellora's Cave,

there is Kirsty, the sweet preacher's daughter. Gigi, Kirsty's friend

and coworker who is from Great Britain. And Marshall, Kirsty's gay boss.

I love to scour the internet and books and watch movies so I can 

write authentic, scintillating dialogue. At least that's what I try to do.

When an email popped up on Kirsty's computer screen she
opened it. Clucking her tongue and shaking her head in disgust, she called out
to Gigi, "Lover boy's back and wants two dozen yellow American Beauties
delivered this afternoon."

            Gigi ambled over to the
computer and gazed at it with longing, resting her chin on her palm.
"Bugger! Why can't I find a gorgeous chap to be all dotty and doting over
me so that he sends me roses? Tell him I'm a singleton." She wrestled
Kirsty for the mouse. 

            "You've got to be joking,
right? He's only sent roses to the whole free world. He gives ladies men a bad
name." She wrote up an invoice for the roses and looked on the map to see
where the lucky lady's address was this time. It turned out that the lady of
the week lived near her out in Coral
  Springs.

            "You under the weather,
Kirst? Don't you like to get
roses?" Gigi stared at her as if she had sprouted two more heads. “Sounds
pretty purvey to me.”

            Kirsty turned her back on her
man-hungry friend and pulled two dozen American Beauties out of the
refrigerator and prepped them. Ladies men weren’t interested in women who
weighed in at 181 pounds like she had that morning. She bit down hard on her
lip to stop it from trembling before she turned around to her friend. "Sure,
if the guy's sincere. But not from some two-bit charmer who sends roses to
every pretty girl in town." 

            Gigi pouted, sticking out her
lower lip half a mile "Not every girl in town. He's not sent them to me -
or you..."

            Kirsty
grimaced down at herself as she turned around. Right – pretty. Not.

            "Or to me." Marshall flounced in,
separating them. "I don't want to hear you badmouthing our best customer.
Viva la Don Juan! As long as he's romancing the Ft. Lauderdale
ladies we have no worries about closing our doors. May we find a hundred more
like him.”

            "Well, keep Lothario away
from me. I'll prep his roses but if he ever shows up in person, you two can
duke it out. I want nothing to do with the likes of him." Kirsty turned
her nose up at the mere notion of such a nauseating thought.

            Marshall walked up behind Kirsty and massaged
her shoulders. "You still pining for Mr. Love ‘em and leave ‘em, eh Sunshine?"

            Kirsty scowled, snorted, and
tossed her head. "No way! I don't know what I ever saw in him. I like my
men sweet and kind...and loyal. No ladies men for me thank you very much."
Sweet men reminded her of her new roommate. They didn't come much sweeter. Too
bad he didn't like women as he would be really handsome if he dressed like a
man. She sighed. Wishing wouldn't do her any good. She didn't have a magic wand
to change his sexual orientation. She pricked her finger on a thorn and yelped.
Blood oozed from the tiny cut.

            "What
now?" Marshall
rushed to her side, his expression more concerned than his words.

            She sucked her finger
tasting the salty blood on her tongue. With her mouth full, her words came out
garbled. "That rose bit me. I told you that Mueller man was bad
news." 

            Marshall pulled the first aid kit out from
under the counter, cleansed the wound, and bandaged her finger. "It's just
a little prick..."

            "He’s a big prick.”
Kirsty scowled at the email again. 

            “Ooh, just
the way I love ‘em.” Marshall’s
eyebrows danced jauntily.

* If you'd like to find out more about American Beauty please visit Ellora's Cave. 

Kelly Maher
Jody Wallace 
Shelli Stevens
Michelle Pillow
Lauren Dane
Leah Braemel
Jaci Burton
Elisabeth Naughton
 McKenna Jeffries
Moira Rogers 
Taige Crenshaw
Vivian Arend
Juliana Stone
Anya Bast
Lacey Savage 
Shelley Munro
 Sasha White
Victoria Janssen
Eliza Gayle 

Sayonara Baby!

Yesterday, I received my third edit from my newest publisher. I thought I was done with edits except for maybe a few pesky line edits.

Sigh. Not so.

That's okay. It's all part of the job. I can and will do it.

The thrust of this edit is my hero's speech patterns. His sentences and his thoughts are too long, like a woman's. I have to go through every line of his dialogue and his thoughts and make them shorter, more masculine. Although my editor didn't say this, it makes me think of Arnold's dialogue as The Terminator.

Maybe it's a coincidence that I happen to be watching the original movie, The Terminator, as I write this article. Maybe watching this movie made my editor's words gel.

Of course each character is different. At least they're supposed to be. In many past manuscripts I've agaonezed over each piece of dialogue to the point past editors said I went overboard. So I have to find a happy medium it seems.

But let's look at some of Arnold's short, to the point phrases:


"I'll be back." (He calmly walks out then crashes back in with a speeding car.)

"Hasta la vista, baby."

"Where is she?" 

"Fuck you, asshole."

"Get out."

"Talk to the hand."

Most of his sentences are less than four words. In subsequent movies when he's learning to be more human, his sentences only lengthen a tiny bit.



Even The Terminator knows to change his speech patterns when he imitates Sarah's mother to trick her, and John's foster mother to try to trick him. The speech pattern is completely different.

Don't worry. I don't want my sexy small-town sheriff to sound like The Terminator, the good or bad version, but it gives me insight. Hopefully, the heroes in the 40 plus books I've already written (and are published) don't sound like their heroines or a heroine. I didn't think so at the time and I'm a little scared to look back to see.


There's so much to learn and with each new editor, even each new edit from a returning editor, I learn something new. At the beginning of my career, I would have thought after 40 or 50 books under my belt, I'd be an expert at every nuance of the writing game. Obviously not. But we can always learn, always get better as long as we live.

So don't worry. I'll do as my editor wisely suggests, and I'll be back, baby.

You have to see thius Terminator clip I found when I was looking for the other one. It's hilarious.

This one has the embedding disabled, so click on the link to go to it if so inclined to have a good laugh:

"Sayonara Baby"

Recent posts you might like to read:


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You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook,
Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch,
Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape
are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)