deilaitha
Sage
So, the word "suddenly" is generally frowned upon by the writing community. We've talked about it on Mythic Scribes, I've talked about it in creative writing classes, I've read articles about it, I've received critiques about it.
Yet I can't stop using it.
I've started combing out a bunch of instances of it--granted, there are many that are completely extraneous and I just wrote out of sheer habit (it's pretty common in speech, so it's easy to slip into in writing). Sometimes, though....nothing else seems to fit. "Abruptly" is just about the same thing, though. It's when a total change of events takes place. That "suddenly" just really feel right.
For example,
vs.
The second one seems flat. How would you transition between sentence A and sentence B without using "suddenly," "unexpectedly," "out of nowhere" or something similar? Any ideas?
Yet I can't stop using it.
I've started combing out a bunch of instances of it--granted, there are many that are completely extraneous and I just wrote out of sheer habit (it's pretty common in speech, so it's easy to slip into in writing). Sometimes, though....nothing else seems to fit. "Abruptly" is just about the same thing, though. It's when a total change of events takes place. That "suddenly" just really feel right.
For example,
[It's a true story!]I sat in the living room, crunching on graham crackers as I wrote a post on Mythic Scribes. Suddenly, my cat started attacking the recliner for no apparent reason.
vs.
I sat in the living room, crunching on graham crackers as I wrote a post on Mythic Scribes. My cat started attacking the recliner for no apparent reason.
The second one seems flat. How would you transition between sentence A and sentence B without using "suddenly," "unexpectedly," "out of nowhere" or something similar? Any ideas?