Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A Are there any general rules or guidelines for using newly coined word(s) or neologism?

There is no problem in using new (or even non-existent) words in your story. However... Writers do this all the time. It is part of the experience to develop a larger vocabulary. But when we learn...

posted 6y ago by Totumus Maximus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T09:32:38Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/38017
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Totumus Maximus‭ · 2019-12-08T09:32:38Z (almost 5 years ago)
There is no problem in using new (or even non-existent) words in your story. However...

Writers do this all the time. It is part of the experience to develop a larger vocabulary. But when we learn a new word that we want to use, it is our task to try not to disturb the reader too much by making him interrupt the story and look for the word in a dictionary.

The main part of using these new words is check how they sound and how you would use it in a sentence. Write these sentences down and see if they make sense.

Try to figure out in which context it works best and how to describe this to someone who has never heard about this word before. If the meaning is understood immediately, you are ready to use this in your story.

(A useful resource: [University of Toronto - Writing Advice: Dealing with New Words](http://advice.writing.utoronto.ca/researching/new-words/))

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-08-01T14:03:02Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 9