I thought I'd write this down before I forget. Recently, I read an article about "using the wrong words to capture the emotion, and searching for the right words later" (which of course I cannot find. So it goes).
Perhaps reading the article gave me some awareness of an intuitive process, because I found myself using the wrong words a lot, and actually having to think "do I want to solve this now?" It got to the stage where, when I was trying to figure out the chapter title for the snippet that had a lot of wrong words, I had to think "is it ok if I use the wrong word for the chapter title too?"
Chapter titles are a thing I like playing with. I had a novel once where the chapter titles were dictionary entries of words I had redefined due to a world building change. So I was less inclined to use the wrong word here. I felt that I had to convey the central idea of my chapter right so that while I continued to fill out the chapter, I would at least know where I was going.
The chapter title in question started out as something about the changing tides, because the previous chapter was titled 'Ebb and Flow'. I was pretty happy with this title, and I thought using something similar would work. But it was the wrong word. More googling led to change in the winds (wrong), game changer (getting closer), change agent (nope, totally cold) and finally phase shift.
The last was better than the others because the chapter in question isn't entirely a change in direction, just a little shift in thinking. Hence, 'phase shift', because it's a little shift of the wave to the right, but still hitting the same beach. We're still in Kansas, Toto.
Perhaps reading the article gave me some awareness of an intuitive process, because I found myself using the wrong words a lot, and actually having to think "do I want to solve this now?" It got to the stage where, when I was trying to figure out the chapter title for the snippet that had a lot of wrong words, I had to think "is it ok if I use the wrong word for the chapter title too?"
Chapter titles are a thing I like playing with. I had a novel once where the chapter titles were dictionary entries of words I had redefined due to a world building change. So I was less inclined to use the wrong word here. I felt that I had to convey the central idea of my chapter right so that while I continued to fill out the chapter, I would at least know where I was going.
The chapter title in question started out as something about the changing tides, because the previous chapter was titled 'Ebb and Flow'. I was pretty happy with this title, and I thought using something similar would work. But it was the wrong word. More googling led to change in the winds (wrong), game changer (getting closer), change agent (nope, totally cold) and finally phase shift.
The last was better than the others because the chapter in question isn't entirely a change in direction, just a little shift in thinking. Hence, 'phase shift', because it's a little shift of the wave to the right, but still hitting the same beach. We're still in Kansas, Toto.