Thoughts of a Mad Man

Carver and Powers and other groups of words

What five words does your character overuse?





I thought of this in learning about the Carver method, a military scale for deciding what to do items to prioritize.


Critical


Accessible


Recognizable


Vulnerable


Effective


Recoverable





Now I thought, if a character were using those five words a lot, say one in every other sentence or every third, that would focus their presence in this space of action. If done at the right frequency, it would telegraph that this person had warrior energy.





And subtle things can be done, say two CARVERs might focus Vulnerability differently. For example one might be compassionate and the other high-functioning anxious. Maybe Critical shifts from important to get used in relating to criticism. Or they think of critical situations rather than critical activities.





I thought of other groups of words. For example a wizard:





Clue


Aware


Responding


Veiled


ephemeral


Resonating





Of course they don't need to be CARVER all the time but I found I got better ones by shoehorning them. Power is a favorite:





Please


Opt


Wait


Elicit


Reveal


Slip





This lady wizard is concerned with making small, gentle changes (please, opt, and wait) Recon (elicit, reveal) and timing (Opt, wait.) Contrast that with this front-line witch. He's very different:





Provoke


Obscure


Wrest


Endure


React


Smite








Haven't done much with this theory, just some thought. The best words would be those that can be used multiple ways, like slip. Slip could be I did something sly or I did something stupid. Both reinforce the character's gentle, unassuming way. She might even be an undercover wizard. BTW I've done things that sort of seemed like I did a magic trick on myself because something in my brain made me slip into what I wanted. A lot of spells would work like that, oops I knocked over a bottle of ink revealing the clue.





I think this is a blog entry but I put it here since nobody reads me LOL.