Things to know while writing a novel #7654-7655

Things to know while writing a novel #7654: Spell check is NOT your friend.

“Clammer” (one who digs for clams) or “clamber” (movement) should not be used for “clamor” (sound).

I’m not fond of using math to dunk on language but keeping track, one could potentially use all 3 of these wrongly, in many different ways. Not that all of them would show up in one confusing sentence buuuut … what if? What if I, a clammer, one autumn day, heard a clamor over the jostling clamber of my clamshell headphones? Why, I could trip and fall!

Things to know while writing a novel #7655: Homonyms ARE your friend.

Homonyms are words that share the same spelling but carry completely different meanings - which makes them, I think, very forgiving:

Parking at the park, Bob Barker’s dog barked at a terrifying piece of bark on the sidewalk.

Looking over the tear in my shed wall, I shed a tear of frustration.

It was a dark and stormy night. Eating my burrito with mole sauce, I watched Cindy Crawford’s mole stare back at me from across the table. Was she the mole I was warned about? The awkward silence was broken by a shriveled waiter, squinting at us like a blind mole.

He offered us a salt shaker, quivering as he remarked, “to measure out one mole of salt, remember that one mole of a compound equals its relative molecular mass in grams.”

Was he trying to tell me something? One thing was certain, he had a strange way of speaking and stranger still, it all made kind of a scents …