I recently read an old post in a writers’ forum where someone used the term ‘verisimilitude’.  As I was only mostly sure that I knew what it meant, I looked it up in my trusty dictionary.  (I love checking definitions anyway, and do it quite often; I imagine that most people who are passionate about words find dictionary reading rewarding — and sometimes just plain fun.)

Verisimilitude: 1. The quality of appearing to be true or real.  2. Something that has the appearance of being true and real.

When I read this, it struck me that this should be a highly significant word in my vocabulary, because verisimilitude is a huge part of what I’ve always wanted to achieve with my own writing — even when I started that first novel when I was eleven years old. Continue reading →