Making Story Word Clouds

[PennyThompson]

Okay so Annie in @TheWritingGroup made a post earlier about overused words, and then @ElectricBlue said he likes to turn his stories into Word Clouds as a way of identifying repetitive words. I had never done this before, but it sounded really interesting, so...

I went to WordClouds.com and pasted the text of my most recent story into it. Then I manually removed all of the character names, which obviously came up a lot. Then I removed all the words that appeared only once or twice, and then this is what it generated



This is a SUPER INTERESTING way to visualize a story, I'm curious what other people's story word clouds look like!!

 

[SmokingFap]

Okay so Annie in @TheWritingGroup made a post earlier about overused words, and then @ElectricBlue said he likes to turn his stories into Word Clouds as a way of identifying repetitive words. I had never done this before, but it sounded really interesting, so...

I went to WordClouds.com and pasted the text of my most recent story into it. Then I manually removed all of the character names, which obviously came up a lot. Then I removed all the words that appeared only once or twice, and then this is what it generated

View attachment 2520319

This is a SUPER INTERESTING way to visualize a story, I'm curious what other people's story word clouds look like!!

That IS interesting, Penny. And my first thought was that your cloud would make a very interesting poster and conversation piece.

 

[PennyThompson]

That IS interesting, Penny. And my first thought was that your cloud would make a very interesting poster and conversation piece.

Well it's definitely not going on MY wall

 

[SmokingFap]

Okay so Annie in @TheWritingGroup made a post earlier about overused words, and then @ElectricBlue said he likes to turn his stories into Word Clouds as a way of identifying repetitive words. I had never done this before, but it sounded really interesting, so...

I went to WordClouds.com and pasted the text of my most recent story into it. Then I manually removed all of the character names, which obviously came up a lot. Then I removed all the words that appeared only once or twice, and then this is what it generated

View attachment 2520319

This is a SUPER INTERESTING way to visualize a story, I'm curious what other people's story word clouds look like!!

I would love to see what the site generated from one of your Austin and Blue stories. Now THAT would be interesting. I wonder if ALIEN would be the biggest word in the middle.

 

[SmokingFap]

Or maybe FUTA or PENIS in the middle for your adventures of Penny.

 

[PennyThompson]

Okay, here's a word cloud for Sexy Women in Your Galaxy! This time I left the characters names in, because there's only two of them and because "Blue" is both a name and an adjective


It's interesting because it's definitely noticeably different from the other story! Except that apparently I like the word "Like" a lot In my possible defense, when describing an alien you have to use a lot of comparisons!

 

[SmokingFap]

Okay, here's a word cloud for Sexy Women in Your Galaxy! This time I left the characters names in, because there's only two of them and because "Blue" is both a name and an adjective

View attachment 2520327
It's interesting because it's definitely noticeably different from the other story! Except that apparently I like the word "Like" a lot In my possible defense, when describing an alien you have to use a lot of comparisons!

That one is fabulous! Especially in the blue type.

 

[YmaOHyd]

Is the first one the cloud for the final Adventures of Penny story? I see Futanari down around 4:30.




I deleted character names and anything based on I since it's a first-person story. No I've, no I'd.

It's funny that 'like' looks as big or bigger than 'said.' Said has a weight of 450, by far the biggest in the cloud. Like has a weight of 230, largely because one of the characters says like in her dialogue, like, all the time.

Not a lot of sex words in there, appropriate for a story where the characters... haven't had sex.

 

[kitmarlowe]

This is very cool! I just did it for a story I finished this weekend (not published yet). I couldn't take the character names out as I'm on my phone and it froze every time I tried but that's fine.

I'm definitely interested to do this for my other stories and see if I find any common words popping up.

 

[PennyThompson]

This is very cool! I just did it for a story I finished this weekend (not published yet). I couldn't take the character names out as I'm on my phone and it froze every time I tried but that's fine.

I'm definitely interested to do this for my other stories and see if I find any common words popping up.

View attachment 2520341

Not gonna lie, this genuinely makes me want to read it, curious what's going on with "back"

 

[YmaOHyd]

This is very cool! I just did it for a story I finished this weekend (not published yet). I couldn't take the character names out as I'm on my phone and it froze every time I tried but that's fine.

I'm definitely interested to do this for my other stories and see if I find any common words popping up.

Interesting that 'back' is so prominent for you too.

 

[PennyThompson]

Is the first one the cloud for the final Adventures of Penny story? I see Futanari down around 4:30.

View attachment 2520332


I deleted character names and anything based on I since it's a first-person story. No I've, no I'd.

It's funny that 'like' looks as big or bigger than 'said.' Said has a weight of 450, by far the biggest in the cloud. Like has a weight of 230, largely because one of the characters says like in her dialogue, like, all the time.

Not a lot of sex words in there, appropriate for a story where the characters... haven't had sex.

No surprise that there's a lot of "time" and "going" and "know" in one of your sex-light romance chapters

 

[kitmarlowe]

Not gonna lie, this genuinely makes me want to read it, curious what's going on with "back"

That word being so prominent was a surprise to me tbh! I'm going to have to go back through it and see what's going on there.

This one isn't going to be on Lit for a while unfortunately as I've entered it into a contest elsewhere but I'm sure it'll show up here eventually!

 

[YmaOHyd]

No surprise that there's a lot of "time" and "going" and "know" in one of your sex-light romance chapters

That's all of my sex-light romance chapters, thank you very much

No surprise that there are more sex words in the one-off sex story, but 'back' is still right there as the #2 word. I used it to describe anatomy (his back), to return (go back), to exit (entered and went back out again), to respond ("hey," she texted. "Hey," I texted back), as a location (the back of the cabinet), and in place of 'away' (pulled back instead of pulled away). All of them are defensible but there's clearly too many, looking at it.

 

[NotWise]

I've made word clouds before and I don't recall that I changed anything. What are y'all going to do with the information?

 

[kitmarlowe]

That's all of my sex-light romance chapters, thank you very much
View attachment 2520356
No surprise that there are more sex words in the one-off sex story, but 'back' is still right there as the #2 word. I used it to describe anatomy (his back), to return (go back), to exit (entered and went back out again), to respond ("hey," she texted. "Hey," I texted back), as a location (the back of the cabinet), and in place of 'away' (pulled back instead of pulled away). All of them are defensible but there's clearly too many, looking at it.

As part of Back Club (can we get badges made?) I don't think it's too many, it's just a very versatile word

 

[CyranoJ]

Neat idea! I did this with Heart Like a Lion (after trimming out the character names).

 

[PennyThompson]

I've made word clouds before and I don't recall that I changed anything. What are y'all going to do with the information?

I'm not sure, yet... So far I've only run them on stories that are already published! I might be more conscious of my use of the word "like," now

 

[PennyThompson]

Neat idea! I did this with Heart Like a Lion (after trimming out the character names).


View attachment 2520368

EYES

 

[YmaOHyd]

As part of Back Club (can we get badges made?) I don't think it's too many, it's just a very versatile word

Looking at it, there are places where I think I'm using it as a crutch. "Back road," fine, cool. But do I need to say "back in my old life"? No. There's nothing wrong with it, but I could also just say "in my old life." Likewise talking about driving, and shifting from second to third to fourth and back down again -- 'back' can stay or it can go, and right now I'm just erring on the side of using it.

Neat idea! I did this with Heart Like a Lion (after trimming out the character names).

When @kitmarlowe has the badges ready, would you like one?

I've made word clouds before and I don't recall that I changed anything. What are y'all going to do with the information?

To me the biggest piece of knowledge is that I looked at about 64,000 words and realized I'm way overusing the word 'back.' Changing text message formatting helps with that a little, but before this little exercise I had no idea I used it so often.

 

[kitmarlowe]

Looking at it, there are places where I think I'm using it as a crutch. "Back road," fine, cool. But do I need to say "back in my old life"? No. There's nothing wrong with it, but I could also just say "in my old life." Likewise talking about driving, and shifting from second to third to fourth and back down again -- 'back' can stay or it can go, and right now I'm just erring on the side of using it.

When @kitmarlowe has the badges ready, would you like one?


To me the biggest piece of knowledge is that I looked at about 64,000 words and realized I'm way overusing the word 'back.' Changing text message formatting helps with that a little, but before this little exercise I had no idea I used it so often.

There's a joke about back shots here but I don't know anybody on these forums well enough to make it directly. I'll just put it on the badges instead.

 

[CyranoJ]

When @kitmarlowe has the badges ready, would you like one?

I normally would never join any club that would have me as a member, but for Back Club, I would make an exception.

 

[ElectricBlue]

This is a SUPER INTERESTING way to visualize a story, I'm curious what other people's story word clouds look like!!

Yes, finding word clouds was the single most useful editing tool I've found. They can be very revealing indeed.

I always keep my characters names in the first pass, to find out the balance of the story - but your idea to edit names out is a good one, to dig deeper into the word usage.

Reading the porn versus erotica thread, I've got stories where the difference (in my mind) definitely shows up in the language being used in stories.

 

[YmaOHyd]

There's a joke about back shots here but I don't know anybody on these forums well enough to make it directly. I'll just put it on the badges instead.

Back Club: Shoot Your Shot

 

[ElectricBlue]

It's funny that 'like' looks as big or bigger than 'said.' Said has a weight of 450, by far the biggest in the cloud. Like has a weight of 230, largely because one of the characters says like in her dialogue, like, all the time.

Spot the valley girl, huh?!