Pacing, Part 6: Dog

I’m working on a series on pacing.  You can see other posts in the series here.

All right, let’s get out a thesaurus and look up dog.

pup, puppy, bitch, cur, doggy, hound, mongrel, mutt, pooch, stray, tyke, bowwow, fido, flea bag, man’s best friend, tail-wagger

As well as a list of dog breeds.

Affenpinscher, Afghan hound, Afghan shepherd, Aidi, Airdale terrier, Akbash, Akita…

Each of those words has a character of its own.  It not only denotes something (that is, to serve as the word “for” something) but connotes, or implies, some other things.  A cur is not man’s best friend, for example, even though both denote some king of dog.

In addition, each of these words has, to go back to the woodworking metaphor, a particular sound that it makes, a particular face that it makes you make, when you say it.  A currrrrrrr literally makes you make an angrier, growlier face than straaaaaay, which almost makes your face smile.  (Check a mirror.)

The words also have lengths: cur, stray, man’s best friend.

Your word choice here is the base level of material with which you build your story.  You can treat the word sincerely, ironically, or with other tones–you can call a beautifully groomed Pomeranian a cur, for example.

How do you know what words to choose?  We’ll get to that…

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