Do It with Verbs

But not just any old verb. Only so-called “strong” or “action” verbs propel, fire, and glide to accomplish what writers want and readers need. Verbs like “was” or “have,” though essential to communication, electrify writing no more than vague nouns, useless adverbs, or redundant adjectives.

Tip: Weak verbs produce weak sentences—which produce weak novels.  

In “Verbs: Spice Up Your Writing with Verbs that Rock,” Dave Bricker remarks:

If your writ­ing was an elec­tric gui­tar, your verbs would be the vol­ume, tone, and dis­tor­tion con­trols that shape the music of your sen­tences.

Johnson’s “Writing Style: Use Good Words, Not Bad Ones” suggests:

Strengthen your verbs by making them as specific as possible. Eat, for example, could also be nibble, devour and gobble, depending on what you want to convey. Likewise, sit could be slouch, spread out or recline.

Henneke concurs:

strong verbs add action, vitality, color, and zest. So, the “secret” to writing with gusto is to choose stronger verbs. — “99 Strong Verbs to Make Your Content Pop, Fizz and Sparkle”

And 

Forget about adjectives -- they're as floppy as a gaggle of 98-lb weaklings. Verbs, on the other hand, are the muscle-men and women of the beach. After all, if your goal is to move readers (either literally or metaphorically), doesn't it make sense to focus on the ACTion words in your writing?— Daphne Gray-Grant, “Starve an Adjective, Feed a Verb”

Committed to verbs? Here’s how to work out with them so they work for you.

~ Expand your working verb vocabulary.

In conversation, we use the same verbs over and over: “Come here,” “Bring the popcorn,” ”Let the dog out.” The problem arises when the fiction writer accesses that same limited number of pedestrian verbs.  Start collecting intriguing verbs.  Check the many online action verb lists.

~ Ruminate.

Mull so readers needn’t. Not “Working through the many disagreements about how to spend money made their marriage that much stronger.” Instead? “Discussing money, instead of quarreling about it, strengthened their marriage.” Invest time in choosing weight-bearing verbs. The more you ponder and practice, then the easier this gets. 

~ Exercise and apply.

Chase different—and better—verbs, even when not actively writing. Notice great or ghastly verbs in everything you read and hear. Yes—everything. 

You can do it.

Glorious Sentences Are Made—Not Born

Novelists compose scads of unsuccessful sentences, and many stay that way. Hardly surprising, given decades of bad habits like thinking aloud, writing the way you talk, trying to sound “fancy,” avoiding confrontation via vagueness, or inflicting academic jargon.

Without pointing the finger at particular best sellers or prize winners, I’ll admit that rip-roaring scenarios or political correctness let many weakly written novels do extremely well.  But. Would  you rather compensate for lame sentence structure, or fix them? This checklist might help.

~ How many sentences (particularly at paragraph beginnings) start with a noun or pronoun? 

Constant use of subject-verb-object (“Hortense bewitched him”) drags. Eyeball the page to check this. Does the left margin languish with repetition? Variety spices not only life, but prose. Seriously. Experiment with fragments. Combine sentences. Divide them. Possibilities abound, and perfecting sentences simultaneously thickens plot and deepens characters. Such a bonus..

~ What’s with the auxiliary verbs? 

Not much, Avoid clutter with weak verbs like “is” or “had.” Action verbs deliver best: “strike,” “kiss,” “shred,” “blink,” “jump.” Exploit the rich heritage of English: whale road meant “ocean”; fire-hammer meant “sword.”

Electrify with symbolic verbs: “illuminate,” “decimate,” “infiltrate.” But follow the metaphor you introduced. Casual or not, it’s still a metaphor. 

~ Do you write tight?

Why say “drew tighter” when you can simply “tighten”?

~ Are you descending into the many ways there are for passive voice to be used by you?

Characters can “buy” stuff or pass “by” train terminals, and “by” also describes time. Dangerously, though, “by” builds this structure: “The ball was hit by the cheerleader.” This is rarely a good way for “by” to be used by you! Why not perform a search for “by”? Innocuous as seems, passive voice enervates, while distancing readers from the characters they follow.

~ If it can be a verb, is it?  

You emasculate prose with “Heraldo experienced fear of seagulls—even the small  ones,” instead of  “Heraldo feared seagulls—even the small ones.”

~ Do you overload the sentence opening?

Avoid constructions like “The reason that Mary can never get enough of lilac fragrance is that these flowers evoke happy childhood summers with Grandma.”  Choose accessible openings, but without creating a new habit, like starting them all with a conjunction (“but,” “because,” etc.) or “ing” phrase.

Tip: While delighting readers, sleek sentences give writers what they never knew they lacked.