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Fictionista, Foodie, Feline-lover

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Word of the Day: Diegetic

I like words, the more obscure the better.
In fact, I have been accused of being a "word snoot."
Lately I've been running across a word I've never heard before: DIEGETIC. The first time I saw it in a piece of script coverage written by one of my subcontractors. Then I saw it in an actual script. The first place I looked it up was Wikipedia, where the definition was so obscure I felt like someone was trying (and not for the first time) to explain the meaning of "semiotics" to me. Then I found this, which explains that "diegetic sound" is sound made by something you can see or something you can assume is nearby. That's not a word I would ever have been able to puzzle out.

1 comment:

  1. Well, more to the point for a writer, diegesis is a term covering most forms of narrative (rather than dramatic) fiction. Most stories happen on the "diagetic level" -- the world of the characters' thoughts and actions.

    (If I recall. Feels like cheating if I look something up.)

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