Grr. Writing woes.

[sakon76]

So I have the following exchange happening in Queen's Choice:

“Fireworks,” Marin replied. “Feasting. Celebration.”

“Dance,” Kanna explicited.

And that last word means precisely what I want it to. She takes the broad category that Marin gives and narrows it down to the singular, exact point she wants to make. The only problem is that as far as I can tell, "explicited" does not exist as a word. Now, the obvious answer is to make it "Kanna made explicit," but I don't want that. She is one of those people who does not suffer fools and is being very Mary Poppins-like at the moment, which is to say verbally crisp and precise, just on this side of insolence. She wants a one-word verb there.

So my question to you all is, can I get away with this or should I use "specified" instead, which would be acceptable but doesn't have quite that sharp, cutting feel to it that Kanna wants?

Comments

[tainry.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I know exactly what you mean there... argh. I would vote for 'specified' as a lesser weevil choice. 'Particularized' appears to be a word but also does not have the edges and brevity called for. Bother.

[mmouse15.livejournal.com]

Use a real word (sorry, I know how that goes), but what about 'snapped'? It's terse and gets out the crispness. There's also 'elucidate' or 'enunciate' or 'proclaim' (too soft?) and 'articulate'.

Good luck!

[sakon76.livejournal.com]

"Snapped" implies anger, though, which isn't the case. And the others are all ways of saying the word rather than relating to defining the word. :/ Plus I'm trying to get away from my bad habit of stage-directing how my characters say things.

[haamel.livejournal.com]

Hate to say it, but "explicited" just doesn't fly here. For starters, your explanation hints at two different distinctions: "specific" versus "vague", and "explicit" versus "veiled". Given your description of Kanna as terse, several possibilities come to mind depending on the particular effect you want:

"Dance," Kanna clarified. [Closest to what I think you mean.]
"Dance," Kanna stated. [Terse word, implies definiteness.]
"Dance," Kanna sniffed. [Also terse, implies disdain.]
"Dance," Kanna interjected. [Implies a terse bringing back to Earth.]
"Dance," Kanna averred. [Interjection, approvingly. High reading level...]
"Dance," Kanna stated flatly. [Tersely disapproving.]
"Dance," said Kanna succinctly. [Still terse, but not disapproving.]
"Dance," said Kanna curtly. [Terse and taught, impatient.]
"Dance," Kanna snapped. [Way more impatient, (dis)approval context-dependent.]

The biggest problem with "explicited" is that it's quite unclear what it's meant to mean. When I see it, the first thing I think of is "freighted with naughty connotations" (cf. "explicit" lyrics), not "clarified" or "disambiguated".

Anyway, hope that helps.