I read that there is a difference between “lazy” and “active” verbs. So, what are those words? Ok. Lazy words are those words, which doesn’t show the scene. You know. Words like “go”, “say”, “see”, etc. Active verbs are “ran”, “asked”, etc.. However, I don’t always find the perfect one. Do you have any tips?
Don't overextend. Your description doesn't need to perfectly capture all the detail, or exactly how you imagine it. Using concise, natural and functional language is more important. If your writing is elaborate, unnatural and highly decorative, many readers won't get the description at all, because they're turned off by it, or have troubling deciphering it. Capture just the most important details. People can work it out, and fill in the gaps. My two cents.
I'm not really seeing your point. How is "go" lazy while "ran" isn't? Does I ran across the street and asked for a newspaper. really give us an infinitely more vivid scene than On Thursdays I go to the wax museum to deliver lunch. I see the Civil War displays and bring the wig-dresser a tuna sandwich and a peppermint malted. ?
I don't know about lazy vs. active, but I think some of the words you mention fall into an unpopular category some BookTubers might call "filter words." Filter words are words that create the sense that the story is being told by a narrator about what someone is going through, rather than giving a feeling of a firsthand experience. Filter Words: see, thought, felt, heard, tasted, looked For example, many people would prefer "the wind howled," over, "he heard the wind howl." This is the writing video I probably share the most, and I found it helpful:
@ChickenFreak Run is a detail. Go isn’t. Go can be everything. Like: "Go!" Emily screamed or Emily goes out of the room.
Actually, maybe I am following you. Is this the equivalent of saying that you shouldn't use the word "ate" and instead should use "gobbled" or "devoured" or "ingested" or "macerated", because "ate" is too clean and simple a word? So, what should Emily scream instead of 'go'? "Depart!" Emily screamed. "Withdraw!" Emily screamed. "Decamp!" Emily screamed. "Retire!" Emily screamed. "Abstract yourself!" Emily screamed. Meh.
No. I didn’t mean that, @ChickenFreak. I meant that go doesn’t show something as good as climbing or running. You know. The detail.
But you're taking a word, looking at a subset of the possible uses of the word, criticizing that subset of uses, and condemning the word. And that doesn't make sense. "Go" is a perfectly good word. "Say" is a perfectly good word. "See" is a perfectly good word. There is nothing delightfully dynamic about either "run" or "asked". Most words have countless uses. It just doesn't make sense to condemn the word. If a character says, "It's dark. I can't see," that is not made better by having them say, "It's dark. I can't scrutinize." 'See', in this case, is the suitable word. If a character says, "Joe? Joe? Where'd you go?" that is not made better by having them say, "Joe? Joe? Where'd you run?" 'Go', in this case, is the suitable word. What you may be saying (yes, saying, not uttering or asserting or declaring) is that it's often good to use a more specific word, rather than a less specific word. And that may be decent advice. Sometimes. But taking that advice to the point of condemning specific words is not productive.
Funny, I was discussing this topic with another writer friend (face to face) just two days ago. He maintains that a weak verb is one that would need a modifier to get the exact image in mind. It's an idea to keep in mind while writing. Is there a more precise verb you could pick that does a better job? To avoid vagueness, or tacking on adverbs? Think of how the sentence's meaning changes here. Each of these verb choices gives a different spin on 'ran,' which just implies traveling on foot, but 'not walking.' He ran to the store to buy a pint of milk. He jogged to the store to buy a pint of milk. He dashed to the store to buy a pint of milk. He scampered to the store to buy a pint of milk. He sprinted to the store to buy a pint of milk. And etc....
Active = place the thread that clearly belongs in Word Mechanics in that subforum. Lazy = put it in General Writing because of course. Moved
Yes. I totally agree. Condemning specific words because they sometimes aren't put to best use is not a great plan, in my opinion. All words are tools. You just have to learn how and when to use them to best effect. Dialogue, as ChickenFreak illustrates, is often NOT the place to get too fancy with word choices. That can make the speaker sound silly or pedantic—which is fine, if that's what they're like. But not so fine if they're not.
Show don't tell isn't only about verb choices. For example: There's a lot of telling there. Basically, the reader is expected to fill in the gaps for how Mary actually "looks longingly", what makes the dress "stunning", where the dress was in the shop, what the dress would look like on her, what a "ball" would look like and what amounts to "dancing the glorious night away". Contrast that with: There's still a little bit of tell in the second example, but there's a whole lot more show. You'll notice that showing takes more words (and more effort), but it can help the scene to come more alive. Telling has its place, where there's a need for an economy of words (for pacing or because it's a flash or short story), but mainly showing is the way to go. I try to always unpack adverbs where economy of words is unimportant and also explain the scene in more detail to leave less to the imagination of the reader. Picking what to leave to the reader's imagination and what to expand on is a definite artform and only comes with lots of practice, something I'm still learning. In short, the verbs you choose are largely a red herring. I say largely because there are certain verbs that lend themselves to telling and less to showing, but as far as I'm concerned, the unpacking of the story is far more important than choosing the right verb. The verbs can look after themselves once you have a mental picture to paint with words.
Yeah, could "go/went" be the word you WANT if you are trying to make the reader gloss over something. Like, "She went to the store and came home to find her husband dead." Then like, eight chapters later a critical clue to do with her having gone to the store comes up, and everyone suddenly remembers her having gone, but glossed over it because of how unimportant it sounded.
A 'tip' is to get yourself (if you don't already have) a couple of good Thesauruses. Thesauri? (Aargh...) The Roget's is a classic, and excellent for showing how you can say things differently, or think about them more specifically. Other kinds of Thesauruses focus more on simple synonyms, which sometimes is enough. However, don't let a Thesaurus do all your work either. Sometimes it's best to think of another concept to get your meaning across. Instead of just substituting words, practice re-thinking the whole approach.
Well. Dictionaries are good. And I have one at home. However, I want to write quickly and good. I can’t allow myself to waste time because of looking into another book while writing. You know. I’m an author, who must write without a break. Otherwise, I don’t know what I wanted to write anymore. @jannert
Oh, that's good, actually. I am a big believer in going with the flow, and NOT editing your work to perfection as you write, at the expense of forgetting the story you're setting down. In that case, however, the point you raised in your original post doesn't really matter, does it? Just grab any word you want, and get the story written. I'm all in favour of that. In that case, there isn't any way I can think of to increase your vocabulary instantaneously. When it comes to editing later on, however, that's when it's a good idea to pay attention to what your words are actually doing—as opposed to what you simply wanted them to do. That's when you can refine your word choices so they are more precise. And that's where a thesaurus can be greatly helpful. I did find it also helped me, to make a list of 'weasel words' like 'somewhat, rather, just, really, quite' etc—the ones I use when I'm not paying attention—and keep that list posted above my computer. If you make a similar list of words YOU want to avoid using all the time, you might want to try the same trick. Every little bit helps.
Mine was "smiled". I have no idea why I seem to love that word. I think often a smile or a look can convey so much, but what I'm really doing is basically trying to translate what would be a movie into narrative, and it just doesn't usually work lol. I think it may also be influences of Henning Mankell, whom I tried to mimic at one point as a teenager - this minimalist style was the first style I actively tried to emulate, and though my actual writing is lyrical rather than minimalist, that minimalism still influences my writing I think. Which is fine - I mean, I can do far worse than emulate Henning Mankell, an internationally renowned Swedish crime writer
Yes, that too. Mine turned out to be 'scrabbled,' which a sharp-eyed beta (from the forum) pointed out. And phrases and imagery as well. I remember reading an author whose go-to phrase for any kind of unease was stomach clenching. His stomach clenched. Her stomach clenched. He felt his stomach clench ...and etc. All that stomach clenching was probably good muscular exercise, but it made laughable reading of an otherwise good story.
I laughed out loud You have reminded me of my husband making fun of one of my characters because her name was Willow, and he, being Czech, had never heard of the name. So every time he saw it, his head just read "Pillow". You can imagine how anti-climactic that made everything Thankfully the names were just placeholders names, so I might not keep Willow. (I wouldn't change it just because a non-native speaker found the name funny, but it did give me pause...)
Don't slavishly replace all the mundane verbs (the ones you label as "lazy" with more evocative verbs. Save the more vivid verbs for impact sentences. Just as you need pianissimo passages in a concerto to set the stage for the fortissimo accents, you need to modulate the intensity of your verbs to grab your reader's attention in the right places. You should very rarely substitute stronger verbs for "said" or "asked". These are places you want the verb to slip into the shadows so the reader's focus is on the actual dialogue. But when the action is fast and intense, the verbs should do most of the work to brighten the action. Adjectives can be used if necessary, but they drag out the sentence where brevity maintains the punch. Adverbs are even weaker, so save them for rolling, sedate paragraphs that set a scene at leisure. "Show, don't tell" is not really great advice. But beginning writers are naturally predisposed toward telling, so the advice was coined to make those writers learn how to convey iformation indirectly. In reality, you need to balance showing and telling, not just use only one or the other. See the "Show and Tell" link in my signature for more about this.
