If it plays, it plays.
Recently I read yet another agent banging on about how offensive writers were when they made the wrong word choices. Eh, well…her black and white thinking struck me as too narrow.
Often what brings writing alive is an unexpected word choice that may challenge its general use. For instance, today I wrote about a “tangent of sopranos taking off from the wider chorus.”It sounds like she’d reject my work based on my choice to use “tangent.” It’s not the right word. I know it’s not the right word. But I think it’s the perfect word.
Fitzgerald often threw in clichés. Then he would slip in a phrase like “deprecating palms” (the trees bending, not hands bending.) It worked.
Filed under: agents, rules of writing, good writing, queries, rules of writing
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