2023 Blogging A to Z The Road Not Taken and Bifurcation

Welcome to April 3, and Day 2 of the challenge blog since Sunday’s don’t count, although I did blog yesterday. Mother Nature is having a rough month, or maybe that’s me, and it’s only a few days old. Here in Canada, where we measure temperature in degrees Celcius, the temperature on Saturday afternoon was 16, then plunged to -7 at night. Today, it’s raining–April showers and all that– and it’s a pleasant 11 degrees, but we’ll see -1 tonight. Now, that may be good for the maple syrup industry, but it sucks for most of us.

My theme this year is Did You Know? And today the letter B is all about Bifurcation. When I was teaching, one of my favorite things was the word of the day, and I would encourage my students to bring in words no one would recognize and challenge them. not only to look it up, but to use it in a sentence.

Everyone knows the famous Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken. Here it is in case you’ve forgotten it.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

As a writer, I’m constantly hearing the importance of varying the vocabulary, and in an effort to do that, Iam a great fan of the thesaurus, bearing in mind that the thesaurus gives you synonyms that do not always mean the same thing, or have the same meaning, and that brings me back to Bifurcation, the process in which something splits in two. Bifurcation may sound fancy and la-de-dah, but all it means is splitting or cutting in two. If a stream divides into two smaller streams, that’s a bifurcation. In Robert Frost’s poem, that road bifurcated. Now, go back and reread the poem substituting bifurcated for diverged. Not quite the same, is it?

The point I’m trying to make here is that while fancy words have a place, that place isn’t always in the book you’re writing. It is essential to grow your vocabulary as an author, and there’s always a place to insert unusual words, but do so sparingly and only when that word will somehow add to the narrative.

Here’s an example of using such a word in prose. This is from my current work in progress, Finding Melinda.

He took the glass of ice from her, the slight touch of his fingers conjuring up images of those hands caressing her body. She shook herself, forcing her mind away from the erotic thought. She’d better watch her alcohol consumption; otherwise, she might say or do something supremely stupid.

Marc added the ice to the wine. “There you go, just the way you like it. Water and wine at its finest.”

She smiled, aware of the laughter in Danny’s eyes. By now, he’d no doubt realized what had her so discombobulated earlier. He’d always teased her back in the day when she’d been getting ready for one date or another. She might not have been the most popular girl in school, but she hadn’t been a wallflower either. She did have a few social and flirting skills even if she hadn’t used them a lot lately. Reaching down, she tugged on the skirt of her dress which had crawled up a few inches displaying more thigh than it should.

Grabbing her wine glass by the stem, she sipped and then turned to Marc, well aware of the fact that, while he tried not to make it obvious, he did seem to be watching her closely. She hoped that meant mutual interest, but every now and then, she saw concern quickly hidden.

“Darcy’s extolled the virtues of Sydney, and Trevor’s told me all about the glory of the Cabot Trail, but you haven’t added much. Do you have a favorite spot they haven’t mentioned?”

Before he could answer, Trevor did. “Does he ever. I hope you like history.”

Danny shook his head. “Like it? She loves the stuff. Did a double major in English and History at university. She cleaned out the library when it came to historical novels, and she didn’t confine herself to any particular country or time, although I do recall a fascination with Ancient Greece and mythology.”

That’s it for B. Come back tomorrow for a Did You Know? featuring C

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