Thursday, January 20, 2011

The Results

On a comment yesterday I made a guess as to which words were going to come up in the "Wordle" test on my books and manuscripts. Now, I only did the first chapters of each, but the results were surprising:

First, my predictions: then, he, she, heart, was

The actual results:

This Time for Always: turned, place, eyes, around, hand, bar, back

Wild Wedding Weekend: stage, woman, right, one, show, know

This Can't Be Love: back, one, head, around, know, time, long, tub

"This Feels Like Home" (WIP): really, head, eyes, like, away, around, dance

In many cases some of the most oft repeated words helped to set the scene a bit. In Always, Logan has come back to town to buy the bar Sharlie manages. In WWW Noah and Abby are on a gameshow. In Love Jessica finds Zach in the bathtub. And in "Home" we're back at the bar again.

Words I'm going to be on the lookout for are: around, back, one, eyes, and know. Around came up in three out of the four searches. Interesting. Apparently I'm not a good guesser!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

5 comments:

  1. Glad you found Wordle useful, Debra. Like you, I was surprised to find which words I over-used. Agree that some are specific to the setting but it's the other, more general, ones that I know I have to keep under control!

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  2. Must give wordle a try. It doesn't matter how long you re-read an MS these pesky blighters do escape detection. A job for CSI, perhaps?

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  3. Great post, Debra.
    I was able to access Wordle by Googling Wordle. Evidently my laptop's security had some issue with the link.
    I looked at Auto-Crit. It takes a count of words, and offers to analzye sentence structure and more.

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  4. Hi Debra,

    I've kind of got to know Zach and Jessica - it's the first novel listed on my Kindle. I'm at chapter five! ;)

    It's amazing what these critter catching software devices can net! I tried autocrit, because the security device on my laptop rejected Wordle big time: didn't trust it at all. It scooped 2 "when", but there was no way the dialogue could be altered. 3 "too" popped up as well. But again, they were part of dialogue. ((smug grin)).

    Now to my kindle! It's fab, and that's from someone who has a veritable library of hardback books, and bookcases galore crammed with paperbacks. Post moans and sighs about ebooks I could read in bed if only I had a kindle, hubby upped and said: "How many of these ebooks would you buy if you had a Kindle?" Answer: "Loads".
    Hubby again: "OK, list them, and maybe you'll chang your mind and want them in paperback. " I did. Oooh, and guess what came via the postman a few days later? A Kindle. That night hubby said: "Hand it over, let's have a look, then." I handed it over. In no more than ten minutes and my dishing up dinner, without my knowing he'd loaded it with all the listed books! ;)

    best
    F

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  5. I love Wordle. I might print out a copy of the design it makes for the first chapter of each of my books. The art really does express the overall theme of the books! (I did have to update my Java app. to make it work on my computer...)

    Francine...top of your Kindle list...I'm so honored!

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