Realistic, Conflict, Concept | Vocabulary

0:00- [Narrator] Ugh, wordsmiths hey, frustrating news. I just got a letter back from a book publisher. They don't want to publish my novel. Listen to this, "Dear Mr. Reinstrum, while we find your concept interesting, the plot as a whole is not terribly realistic.

0:16We'd like to see a more relatable conflict. We like the main characters of "Moon Goblin Detectives: Life on the Dark Side", but the plot needs work. Please edit your novel and try again. Yours very sincerely, Wellington J Snodgrass, editor." (person groaning) Tough feedback to get wordsmiths.

0:36Is it really time for me to rethink "Moon Goblin Detectives: Life on the Dark Side", or do I just need to send it to a different publisher? Anyway, Mr. Snodgrass used some good words in his letter, so let's not let a vocabulary lesson go to waste. Concept, realistic, conflict.

0:53Those are our words for this video. Let's start with concept, concept. It's a noun. It means a general idea or understanding. So the general idea of moon goblin detectives is that it's about detectives who are goblins, who live on the moon and solve moon crimes.

1:11That's the understanding I'd want you to have about the book. Conflict, this has two pronunciations, one for the noun, one for the verb. For the noun it's conflict, conflict. For the verb, it's conflict, conflict. The noun means a disagreement or the main problem a character faces in a story.

1:34If you and your best friend are fighting, you're having a conflict. In Moon Goblin Detectives, Life on the Dark Side, the conflict is that someone has stolen a lot of gold from the first bank of the moon. The verb conflict means to be different or opposite, to disagree.

1:52My version of what happened at the chicken raffle conflicts with yours because I'm lying and you are telling the truth and realistic, realistic, it's an adjective. It means showing things that could happen in the real world. In real life, gold is very heavy, which means that it's not realistic for someone to carry off two tons of gold in a backpack like they do in Moon Goblin Detectives: Life on the Dark Side.

2:23I must admit, even on the moon, carrying two tons of gold in a backpack is not a thing that could happen in the real world. Let's use these words in some examples. Molly didn't think the story about dinosaurs trying to start a bakery on Mars was very realistic.

2:38I have to admit that Molly is right. I mean, first of all, there's no flour on Mars. How are you gonna start a bakery without flour? Oh, and there are no dinosaurs on Mars also. The main conflict of this story is between Jeet and Mr. Bricks, the evil mailman who crushes all of Jeet's packages.

2:56This is the problem that Jeet faces in the story, that Mr. Bricks crushes all his packages. That's the problem he'll have to overcome as the hero. Last sentence, "I didn't really get the concept of gravity until I held a bucket of rocks over my head, and then it hit me."

3:11Right, the idea of gravity that objects fall when you drop them finally came through for me and made sense to me when I learned the hard way, shall we say, and I've learned the hard way about Moon Goblin Detectives that I don't think Mr. Snodgrass wants to buy my book.

3:27Ooh, but what if instead of the moon, I set it on Mercury. Oh yeah, you're cooking now David. Wordsmiths I gotta run. I have some edits to make to my novel. I'll see you in the next one. You can learn anything, David out.