[stylist] Just for Fun: Words That Are Acceptable in Everyday Use, but Not In Literary Writing

[Vejas Vasiliauskas]

Hi Everyone,
As someone who enjoys writing fiction, the two school papers that 
I have had to write recently have made me think about the fact 
that there are some words which I would use in my stories which I 
would never use in my writing.  Here are the ones I can think of 
off the top of my head.
"Lady." When I analyze writing I use woman.  It makes more sense 
in an analytical paper to say something like (and these are all 
my own sentences by the way), "The Belgian woman feels that her 
identity is not being respected." But I wouldn't have a problem 
in a fiction piece saying, "I saw a middlinchbged lady walking 
her dog down the street."
Mom/Dad, as opposed to motherble"from.  In an analysis paper, I 
might say something like "When Anna tells her father she was 
moving away", because Dad sounds too casual, whereas I feel it is 
OK to perhaps use dad (lower-case) when talking about her father 
in a story.
"Not a fan of." This phrase immediately came into mind for my 
theology paper, when expressing Augustine's dislike of sex before 
marriage.  I would never actually use it on such a serious paper.
"Nowadays" just sounds too casual in literary writing.
Any others?
Vejas