When the right word just won't... come... out

This happens to me all the time, and I read every day. I think it's a combination of lots of factors, but in your case it sounds like you're putting an awful lot of pressure on yourself to know all the words at once. Performance anxiety?

We know thousands of words. The English language comprises hundreds of thousands of words. It's unreasonable to expect that you can pull any one of them out for its exact purpose at any given moment.

I've come to terms with the fact that sometimes, the right word isn't precisely where I need it. I know it will come back eventually, so I make a note of it, move on, and fill it in later.

Omega 3

I saw an unfinished piece somewhere that had occasional random capitalized words. When asked about them, the author explained that those were placeholder words. S/he wasn't able to think of the exact right word, but was on a roll writing the draft and didn't want to hit the brakes to fumble around for it. Instead, an all-caps placeholder word was inserted so that the issue could be addressed during editing. The placeholder wasn't the right word, but it was close enough to retain the general meaning of the sentence.

I thought it was a brilliant idea and I've copied the technique with great success, capitalizing or highlighting the word and going back to it during the editing phase when there's less pressure.

Totally agree with above. If you know it's not quite the right word, highlight it or otherwise mark it, and keep going. Deal with it in edits.

This happens to me all the time. Words on the tip of your tongue. Argh!

In addition to the random attacks, I have certain words that I can never remember when I need them. I ended up putting them in a list on my phone, and referring to it once in a while. The words gradually became more "recent memory" and I no longer have a problem with them. Now I have a new list.

WTF is my placeholder.

Sometimes it's WTFKINDATREE, WTFWORDFORBLACK, WTFGOESHERE??

I use a double question mark as a placeholder (??).

It can be surprising how quickly the word comes to you once the pressure to remember it is lifted.

Google can help sometimes, especially if it's a factual block. Type in whatever you do know and see what comes up. Or just type in a direct question. The chances are that someone else has asked the same question, or one very much like it.

As others have said, it a word isn't coming, don't sweat it. Put in a placeholder and come back to it later. I tend to find that I wake at 3 am screaming the word that I couldn't remember at 11 pm. My wife is pretty understanding when that word is a noun, adjective or verb.

She does get a tad shirty if it's another woman's name that I am shouting at 3 am....

"Beyoncé!"

I use the in-text annotation feature in Scrivener for this (and other) purposes. It usually involves generous use of WTF, like WriteMinded said; keeps it lighthearted and usually prevents me from hulk-smashing my keyboard in frustration. This way when I edit I can find the annotations quickly and I've often found the word I was blanking on the first time around pops right into my head.

You develop a new, larger vocabulary when you write, and a more active one at that. Still, occasionally that happens. If this happens on-the-go, there's nothing you can do. But in writing, you can deal with it three different ways. You use a placeholder and get back to it later. You can use a thesaurus and start with a word you know isn't quite right then you inch your way toward the correct one, definition by definition. Or you can invest in the Flip dictionary, a pretty nifty tool, where you look up the word cow, and it gives you all sorts of related words like melk, milk, shed, moo, farm, pat, cheese, grass, field and so on.

The main point is not to worry too much. These things happen.

I have a very large vocabulary, and a very good memory, but I forget common words all the time. As often as not, the word is in my mind, I see it clearly, I start to type it, and it simply vanishes before I can. And it won't come back.

At other times, it may be a word I've used ten thousand times, but when I need it, I can't find it. It isn't in the file cabinet where it belongs. Words do that, you know. They play hide and go seek. People's names do it even more often than most words, but they all do it. They slip out of their own file drawer, tiptoe across the memory room, and crawl into a random drawer.

An hour later, a day later, or a week later, they jump out of teh drawer and yell, "Here I am!"

It's frustrating, but it is normal. If I can't find the word quickly, I yell, "All ye, All ye walks in free!" Amazingly, this often works, but tell me that's normal. When it doesn't, I use a different word.

I don't have this happen often at all when I write but if I did, I might just insert a symbol to stand in for the word and go on with the story rather than let it distract too much. You can always come back to it later.

Jamesaritchie said:

"All ye, All ye walks in free!"

Click to expand...

A tad off topic here but since we are talking about words... I had always heard the above as "Ollie Ollie Umphrey," and figured that person's name had meaning in that context at one time somehow but it was lost. Mystery solved, thank you Jamesaritchie. Link below, if anyone is interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olly_olly_oxen_free

Sometimes just getting up and walking across the room can shake the word free. Don't sweat it--we all have this problem. I was walking around a shop today while they were playing a song I know really well but the band name didn't come to me until I was on the point of leaving.

When I can't find the word I want, I think the best approach is to keep writing. Put a substitute word in brackets, or make a note in the margin (whatever works with your word processing program) so you can come back to it on revision, or if inspiration strikes later.

And keep a note pad by your bed, in case that word comes to you in the middle of the night.

Interrobang said:

It can be surprising how quickly the word comes to you once the pressure to remember it is lifted.

Click to expand...

QFT

Fruitbat said:

I don't have this happen often at all when I write but if I did, I might just insert a symbol to stand in for the word and go on with the story rather than let it distract too much. You can always come back to it later.




A tad off topic here but since we are talking about words... I had always heard the above as "Ollie Ollie Umphrey," and figured that person's name had meaning in that context at one time somehow but it was lost. Mystery solved, thank you Jamesaritchie. Link below, if anyone is interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olly_olly_oxen_free

Click to expand...

The best explanation I've found is that the Scottish brogue turned "all ye, all ye" into "olly, olly' And "in free" to "umphrey".

Fruitbat said:

A tad off topic here but since we are talking about words... I had always heard the above as "Ollie Ollie Umphrey," and figured that person's name had meaning in that context at one time somehow but it was lost. Mystery solved, thank you Jamesaritchie. Link below, if anyone is interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olly_olly_oxen_free

Click to expand...

I've said Olly Olly oxen free my whole life and had not a single inkling that there were any variations. I also never came close to looking it up. God I love this forum! /derail

Nature Geek, this literally happens to me all the time, so much so that it doesn't even phase me anymore, I just mumble to myself that I'll fix it in edits and I move on. You're not alone, don't worry.

It tends to happen with pretty basic words that you shouldn't forget as well. Case in point, I'm in an anatomy class right now and we just took out first practical exam, having to name pinned muscles and things on the human body. I got to one station, knew the muscle I was supposed to name, but could. Not. Summon. The word. It was one of the first few muscles we learned about in the class, and we talked about it all the time (it was the rhomboids), and I had it right on the tip of my tongue. *sigh* I did eventually remember it, but it was too late by that time.

K.L. Bennett said:

I've said Olly Olly oxen free my whole life and had not a single inkling that there were any variations. I also never came close to looking it up. God I love this forum! /derail

Click to expand...

Me too. But even when I was 7, I wondered WTF it meant. Now I know. A morning well spent!

Right there with you, Nature Geek. I think Anna Spargo-Ryan hit the nail on the head; between the amount of words the English language is comprised of, and the pressure you're no doubt putting on yourself, that's probably what's causing it.

I go through it a lot, too. Drives me bat-sh*t crazy, but I noticed when I stop trying to think of it, it comes to me...much the way the word "responding" came to you, once you were focusing on something else. ^^;

I think everyone else has given some helpful tips, as well; highlight it, and edit, later.

Once! said:

G
As others have said, it a word isn't coming, don't sweat it. Put in a placeholder and come back to it later. I tend to find that I wake at 3 am screaming the word that I couldn't remember at 11 pm. My wife is pretty understanding when that word is a noun, adjective or verb.

She does get a tad shirty if it's another woman's name that I am shouting at 3 am....

"Beyoncé!"

Click to expand...

Once! you make me laugh so much!

Roxxsmom said:

When I can't find the word I want, I think the best approach is to keep writing. Put a substitute word in brackets, or make a note in the margin (whatever works with your word processing program) so you can come back to it on revision, or if inspiration strikes later.

And keep a note pad by your bed, in case that word comes to you in the middle of the night.

Click to expand...

I completely do that to, but for me, it's xxxxx and in between the xxxxx I put all the words I can think of that either are close in meaning to what I am looking for, or the random words that come to mind, because often they come to my mind because they start or end with the same letters as the word I am looking for.

Often, reading back through that another time is enough to make me find the word, and hasn't stopped the creative flow of writing at the time I was stuck.

I chose xxxx because these jump right at my eyes when I am editing, not something I might miss like Capitalized words.

it ends up looking like that :
xxxxx word xxxx word xxxx word, till I am satisfied I have covered all that came to my mind.

Hope that helps for you to see some of the tricks other writers use, and to see how wide spread your problem is ;-)

I really can't use placeholder words because I rewrite/revise/edit each page as I go. I might put a placeholder word in for a few minutes, but I have to find the right word before I move on to the next page.

The word is in there. I believe our brain stores everything we've ever heard, seen, read, etc. Several years ago, I tried to think of a song I hadn't heard since I was young. I couldn't remembe ranything except a few words of the chorus. Just four or five or six words. Nothing else would come to me.

But I spent the next three or four days concentrating on that song. And I mean full-time concentration. By the end of the last day I'd remembered the entire song, word for word. The words are in there, if they ever were, it's just getting them out that can be difficult.

Two things I discovered. 1. Mark Twain was correct when he said, " The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." 2. At least as often as not, the word I'm looking for is not the right word, but any substitute I use is.

Very often, I think forgetting a word is no more than my subconscious telling me that I really don't want that word, and, here, use this one instead.