The secret vocabulary of writing: 39 terms you'll come across in fiction
What is a WIP and how is different from a MS? What's an arc and is it the same as an ARC? No need to nod and smile anymore, I've got you covered.
Have you ever entered a conversation about writing that you thought was going well until someone uses a bizarre acronym that doesn’t make any sense? Me too! I was loitering by the biscuit table at a writing conference in 2019—as you do—and a lovely man started asking me about what kind of manuscript I was working on. ‘Manuscript?!’ I thought. ‘I’m not a Benedictine monk! I don’t handle manuscripts! Am I at some kind of academic event? Is someone going to parade the Magna Carta and blow a bugle?’ Low and behold, he was just asking what kind of book I was writing.
Writing terminology is there as shorthand and usually used in writing forums or during workshops. Sometimes, it can feel a little alienating when someone uses a term like ‘character agency’, because you spend the next five minutes trying to figure out what they mean and before long, the whole conversation feels like a literature seminar that you barely scraped the grades for.
But fear not! I’ve made a glossary. Now, I’m not going to pretend that the Oxford English Dictionary will be using these anytime soon, but hey, if it helps, it helps.