One thing that I tend to find amusing as a thought experiment is to irregularise regular verbs. It's a fun mental plaything that I like to toy around with.
I haven't used it (much) in my writing, as I'm uncertain about the impact it'll have on the reader. However, last night, I felt like I really wanted to write glew, instead of glowed. I didn't, but it got me thinking, and it made me decide to bring it up here.
In the part of the story I was working on, a glowing seed plays a very important role. There's a lot of attention on how it glows and the light that comes from it. I feel that from context it would have been clear what I meant if I'd used the word glew instead of glowed, but as it's not an actual word in the English language (urbandictionary.com doesn't count - because I say so).
I don't have the relevant piece at hand to quote at the moment, but I can share it later when I get back home in case anyone's curious.
What I'm pondering though is how much this would rattle the reader. How do you think that you as a reader would react if you came across it?
I know that we as fantasy writers make up words all the time, but that's more often for names of places, people, objects, concepts etc - not for words that are just part of the regular prose-flow (is that a word?).
If a word makes sense, seems plausible, and it's clear from context what it means, would you take the gamble and bet the reader doesn't stumble?
In one of the later chapters of Enar's Vacation I described (descrobe?) the weather and how the wind whone through the trees, and used that made up form of whined for it. Less than a handful of people actually read that far into the story, but none of them commented on it, and none of them remembered noticing it when I asked.
I'm thinking that if the reader is enough into the story, and the word flows naturally within the prose, then chances are the reader won't notice. But, again, is it a risk you want to take?
I haven't used it (much) in my writing, as I'm uncertain about the impact it'll have on the reader. However, last night, I felt like I really wanted to write glew, instead of glowed. I didn't, but it got me thinking, and it made me decide to bring it up here.
In the part of the story I was working on, a glowing seed plays a very important role. There's a lot of attention on how it glows and the light that comes from it. I feel that from context it would have been clear what I meant if I'd used the word glew instead of glowed, but as it's not an actual word in the English language (urbandictionary.com doesn't count - because I say so).
I don't have the relevant piece at hand to quote at the moment, but I can share it later when I get back home in case anyone's curious.
What I'm pondering though is how much this would rattle the reader. How do you think that you as a reader would react if you came across it?
I know that we as fantasy writers make up words all the time, but that's more often for names of places, people, objects, concepts etc - not for words that are just part of the regular prose-flow (is that a word?).
If a word makes sense, seems plausible, and it's clear from context what it means, would you take the gamble and bet the reader doesn't stumble?
In one of the later chapters of Enar's Vacation I described (descrobe?) the weather and how the wind whone through the trees, and used that made up form of whined for it. Less than a handful of people actually read that far into the story, but none of them commented on it, and none of them remembered noticing it when I asked.
I'm thinking that if the reader is enough into the story, and the word flows naturally within the prose, then chances are the reader won't notice. But, again, is it a risk you want to take?