ODDs: What's in a Word?

Over the past few days the second ODDs book (ODDs 2: Chaos and Discord) has been moving towards its 100,000th word. This got me to thinking that I would write a blog surrounding that word. It would be entitled 'what's in a word'. This is that blog (haha)

The ODDs for those of you who don't know is my book series, it stands for Organisation of Demon Destroyers and is about these heroes with varied powers who have to stop monsters from taking over the world/killing people. It finds its beginnings in inspiration from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though has moved away from that towards biblical and real life situations and metaphors with a mix of world mythologies on monsters, largely Irish, and some things that pop out of the depths of my (and my creative team)'s heads. The ODDs is planned to be (at least) 12 books with the possibility of (at least) 3 book spin offs (Chicago, Hell and Dragons) as well as a 13th book to explain some of the stuff in 5-9 and a diary by one of my favourite characters telling his story (which won't be told in the main story). Finally there is also the possibility of three spin off/comic series (Earth's Army, Grand Masters and James). Wowzers.

Okay enough of me rambling, on to word 100,000 (actually just a little further ado, on Facebook, in my notes you can find the prologue and 100th page of number 1, while number one is available on Amazon.com [search my name or 'the ODDs Beginnings'])

So the 100,000th word of the second ODDs is 'and'...

Well, that was anti-climatic.

So much so that when I realised that the 100,000th word of my second book was and that I rewrote the sentence, just so it would be anything but and.

The sentence went:

"Okay," Romeo said and moved towards the door...

I first changed it to:

"Okay, I'll go and...

and again...

so taking out the and,

"Okay, I'll go let..."

Let isn't good enough to write a blog around either.

Another re-write was in order (if you didn't realise already, I have got OCD)

Now the sentence reads:

"Coolio," Romeo said winking..."

Now that is a 100,000th word. Winking.

The change suits Romeo's newfound confidence and cheeky chappy nature better than him just saying okay. The wink is epic too because he is flirting, something Romeo would never have done even a chapter ago but that suits his personality so much better now, a chapter later. I guess that my writing brain is slower to update my character profiles than my writing is. So this blog on the 100,000th word made me think more about my characters and how they think would say something, especially when the person they like is upset and he is going to take them for ice-cream, he would be a little flirty; would he not?

In conclusion: what's in a word? A whole lot it would appear. The importance of one word has inspired this whole blog and me to think deeper about how characters I created think.

Wavey ~