: Re: Are there any general rules or guidelines for using neologism or newly coined word (Cutease)? Recently, I came across a beautiful word 'Cutease', defined on Urban dictionary as: Cute, sassy, saucy

@Phylliss352

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Writers Should Disappear

The work of a writer is to disappear.
In the best writing the reader does not even notice that there is a "writer at work".

When I first read that word, I read it as Cut-ease. I thought it was going to mean something like making a cut easier. It made me pause. When I paused to think about it, I started wondering what the writer meant. That made me stop thinking of the material at hand and thinking about other things. It distracted me from the piece I was reading.

As much as possible, as a writer, you don't want to do that because that is where you may lose a reader.

More Important In Fiction Than Non-fiction

This is a general guideline and more important in fiction than non-fiction.

So, consider each new word you use and the reader group you are targeting to determine how they may get stuck on a word so you don't slow them down and break the reader's reverie.

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