Words and Phrases Every Author or Aspiring Author Should Know
Working with a variety of authors means explaining many of the terms, phrases, acronyms, and writing and publishing language. Forgetting to check with authors on what they know and what they don’t exposes my “curse of knowledge.”
Also known as the “curse of expertise,” The Decision Lab explains it this way:
“The curse of knowledge, also known as the curse of expertise, is a cognitive bias in which we assume that the people we are talking to have the same level of understanding as we do on a given subject. This often causes a barrier to effective knowledge sharing as we are uncertain about what the other party already knows.”
It only takes one client to give me the worried forehead of a wrinkled brow to remind me that I might be speaking in tongues when I mention the words and phrases shared here. It’s easy to be confused, since every discipline has its own language. For us, these phrases, words, and acronyms shared below are among the most prevalent and important ones you should know if you’re a budding author.
For even more words you should know, visit this blog post, “The Universal Language of Publishing” from 2023. All words are still relevant, and most are not covered here.
Overall Words to Know
ARC – advanced reader copy. The PDF you deliver to your beta readers is an uncorrected proof or ARC.
Arc – the chronological flow of your book’s story; the path or journey the story follows. This is where we delve into the beginning, the middle, and the end—also part of the hero’s journey.
Blurb – the description of the book on the back of paperbacks or the inside flap of hardcover books.
Copyright – From copyright.gov: “…copyright protection exists from the moment an original work is ‘fixed’ in a tangible medium. For writers, fixation occurs when your ideas are written down on paper or typed using a computer, for example. You don’t need to do anything else for your work to be protected by copyright.”
It’s important, however, to register your copyright at the copyright.gov office to be protected from scammers who are out to steal your work. Today, that is more important than ever.
Genre or niche – a specific type of book or story; romcom: romance comedy; mystery, intrigue, crime, memoir, self-help, how-to, and nonfiction business are some of the genres people write in.
Hook – that first sentence that is so strong and interesting, it makes the reader eager to read the entire book. It was a dark and stormy night, NOT a good hook. This is a good hook, from Dean Koontz’s book, Dragon Tears: “Tuesday was a fine California day, full of sunshine and promise, until Harry Lyon had to shoot someone at lunch.”
This term is also used to describe the book to others. Similar to an elevator pitch. A short sentence that can be conveyed and ‘hook’ the person reading it or listening to it. The hook is something the author needs to refine as they write. It usually reveals itself as you write the book.
Query – a letter you write to an agent to see if they might be interested in your book.
Fair use – a slippery slope to walk. This refers to how much of someone else’s work you can reference in your work. The answer to ‘well, how much, Yvonne’ is…it depends. Here’s what the copyright office says about Fair use:
“The Copyright Alliance says that according to U.S. copyright law, Fair use permits a party to use a copyrighted work without the copyright owner’s permission for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. These purposes only illustrate what might be considered fair use and are not examples of what will always be considered as fair use. In fact, there are no bright-line rules in determining fair use, since it is determined on a case-by-case basis.”
Foreign/audio/digital rights – if you’re working in traditional publishing, you will want to understand and negotiate your foreign rights (rights to publish your book in any country other than the country of origin), your audio rights, your digital (eBook) rights, and any and all other rights known and unknown, because who knows what new tech will bring us in the coming years. If your novel is well done, you may need to negotiate film, TV, and dramatic rights.
Word count – how many words are in your book; 40,000 to 90,000 will *generally* be 160 to 360 pages, printed out; I say generally because layout and design dictate a lot of that (don’t ask how long your book should be, it should be as long as necessary; however, working with a book coach and developmental editor like myself will assure that you don’t overwrite with a lot of unnecessary content)
Comp titles – these are books that are comparable to yours; if pitching an agent, you’ll want to show how your book is similar these books (especially bestsellers); if Indie publishing, you’ll want to understand how your book compares to these other books for your marketing (people will compare you, so it behooves you to compare first).
FICTION
Protagonist – This is your main character. This is the character your reader needs to resonate with and feel connected to. (BTW, remember that protagonists are not all good; they’re human, give them faults.)
Antagonist – This is the character who is doing their best to make sure the protagonist fails in their journey and their desire. (Just like the protagonist, the antagonist is not all bad; make sure to show some vulnerability.)
Characters – All the people and animals in your book are characters. If your book is science fiction, you may have characters that are not human. Be creative.
Anti-hero – This is a literary term defining someone we cheer on even though their actions are not traditionally ‘heroic’—for instance, Tony Soprano, from the popular television show of the early 2000s. In today’s media, we see comic book antiheroes like Wolverine, Deadpool, and Catwoman. Think of the last character you encountered in a book that was both good and bad in their reasoning for doing what they did. Their actions served their purpose, not the bigger purpose of a collective whole, as true heroes do.
Narrative – Many people use the terms “story” and “narrative” interchangeably. Your narrative/story is the series of events that takes the protagonist along their journey to fulfillment.
Prologue – the part of the story that the reader needs to know that generally happened well before the start of the actual story.
Epilogue – the other ending of the story, which I generally find rather silly; just end it with the last chapter, please. Many epilogues delve into more detail about what happened ‘next’ in the story and with the characters. If you feel you need an epilogue, I say maybe you do, but maybe you just need to write another book.
Afterword – a reflective note the author shares about the writing or the idea of the book, which is added at the end of the book.
Ambiance – A feeling, mood, or memory associated with a person, place, or thing; aka, atmosphere.
Audience – Your readers. The group of people you write for.
Setting – The time and/or place where something happens.
Voice – Each author has a unique voice. This is how they write, how they tell their stories, how they describe events and characters, and how they use dialogue. I believe it’s a sound as much as a word or phrase written to describe the sound. I believe readers hear the voice as they read. The flow of the story, the settings, the paragraph length, the chapter length, the characters, and all their virtues and foibles make up your voice in your book.
Archetypes – Using The Hero’s Journey as an example of a blueprint for creating a transformational story, we can look within it for familiar archetypes. Created by Joseph Campbell in 1949, in his book The Hero with A Thousand Faces, the hero is called to adventure, refuses the call, meets a mentor who convinces the hero to pursue the adventure, is tested, finds other allies, endures an ‘ordeal’ (often more than one ordeal) that changes the hero’s life and sometimes impacts the whole world, and the hero then returns to the ordinary world, with wisdom to share, as their reward (the ordinary world being where they wanted to be all along). This is a very condensed and simplified explanation.
Think of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Think of The Wizard of Oz. All of these familiar movies and books present us with known archetypes – well-known ‘roles’ that each hero plays in the story. Such as:
- The hero – your protagonist
- The mentor – a wise voice
- The shadow – your antagonist
- An ally – a friend or other character (could be an animal)
- The threshold guardian – obstacle or person put there to test the hero’s resolve
What is written below can often apply to both fiction and nonfiction.
NONFICTION
Story – See narrative above. In nonfiction, the story is the same with setting, characters, and dialogue, but the purpose is different. In nonfiction, a story gives meaning, shape, and emotional resonance to the message being shared. This can be achieved through sharing personal experiences, successes, and failures, accompanied by a metaphor or parable, or a case study. The ‘story’ engages the reader more effectively than mere presentation of facts.
Message – This is the throughline. The reason you wrote the book. The reason I, the reader, should care.
Flow/Throughline – This refers to the way the content in your book is written, ensuring the message remains clear throughout the chapters. Your throughline helps keep you focused on the effect you want to have on your reader. What should they learn and why should they care?
Voice – See voice above. Voice is the same in fiction and nonfiction.
Style – Style is how your writing sounds and feels to the reader. It’s not what you say (that’s content) or how you structure it (that’s organization). Style is your authorial voice in motion—the rhythm, tone, language, and personality that brings life to your ideas.
Style is what makes your book feel distinctively yours. (written with some help from ChatGPT)
Epigraph – A short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book, to support the content in the book. A more detailed explanation from Wikipedia:
“In literature, an epigraph is a phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document, monograph or section or chapter thereof. The epigraph may serve as a preface to the work; as a summary; as a counter-example; or as a link from the work to a wider literary canon, with the purpose of either inviting comparison or enlisting a conventional context.”
May be used in fiction or nonfiction.
Foreword – That which comes before. A foreword is a short, 3-to-5-page essay at the front of a nonfiction book, written by someone other than the author. Forewords are usually written by someone who knows both the author and the message in the book. Sometimes, forewords are written by someone the author does not know but who is familiar with the content and can speak to the author’s expertise.
Front matter – The few pages at the front of the book that are not numbered. The front matter includes the title page, copyright page (with copyright notice, ISBN, disclaimers, design credits, and publisher information). It also includes your dedication, table of contents, acknowledgments (though some authors place them in the back matter), your epigraph (if you have one), your preface, and sometimes the introduction. We consider the introduction part of the main book, however.
Back matter – This includes a call to action (visit my website, join my group), the About the Author page, any discussion guide included, sometimes the acknowledgments, and a glossary if your book has one.
Appendix – Most often, an appendix is found in nonfiction, rather than fiction. This may be content that elaborates on or provides additional information to specific parts of the entire book. Clarification, lists, a glossary, endnotes, even charts and tables. This is not to be confused, though it often is, with the Index. The call to action at the end of the book might be considered an appendix. (The call to action is where you ask the reader to do something: join a group, visit your website, or write a review.)
Index – Sometimes referred to in the plural, (Latin) as indices; box index and indices are correct. This is part of the back matter of a book. An index arranges information in several ways – by page, by subject (keyword), and by topic. Consider this: you’re well into chapter six, and it mentions something from chapter one. You don’t remember the exact phrasing or purpose of the reference, so you flip to the index, use the keyword in the phrase, and find the exact page the phrase is written on. No flipping through chapters or pages to try and find the reference to something you need to recall.
Not to mention, with an Index, you can find almost any word or passage you need when sharing the book with another and wanting to cite the source.
Of course, readers can always underline and add tabs to their books to achieve the same effect. It’s not nearly as comprehensive, however.
I have merely touched the surface of the words you need to know when writing and publishing a book. I did not cover the words you need to know to market a book. If you would like me to do so, please add a comment and let me know.
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