Tag: grammar

Thursday Technicalities: Strong Verbs

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Okay, everyone! This post is probably going to be a little bit shorter because of the subject matter, but we’re going to be taking a look at strong verbs, how to choose them, and why they matter. This is a pretty important subject to discuss since the words you choose have a big impact on what your reader takes away from your story. So, let’s dive right in!

Why Do Strong Verbs Matter?

First off, they matter because they’re going to make your writing sound and appear more polished. Choosing the right word to give your reader the right image makes you stand out. When another writer uses run and you use sprint, you stand out because you have used a word that gets at what you really mean. It sounds more mature.

Reason two? Imagery is everything in writing. Your reader must be able to envision what you are writing. If they can’t visualize it, they’re going to lose interest in most cases. Strong verbs help you to accomplish that purpose. When combined with descriptive and precise nouns to name the things in your scenes, strong verbs are able to bring the words on the page to life for the reader. It also makes it less work for them as they immerse themselves in your story. That’s a good thing because they’re more likely to want to stay immersed in the story!

And the final reason? Besides just sounding professional and besides bringing the scene to life for the reader, strong verbs help to eliminate wordiness and get the point across the first time. You don’t need as many of those pesky “ly” adverbs that writing instructors constantly warn against if you’re using strong verbs. Generally, a lack of strong verbs or descriptive nouns results in an overuse of those adjectives and adverbs that instructors complain about. If you address the actual issue at hand, you won’t have the symptom of it anymore. Pretty nice, right?

What is a Strong Verb?

Before we go any further, let’s talk about what a strong verb is. Most people don’t ponder their word choices very often if at all. Unless they just can’t find the word to fit, they stick with whatever comes to mind first. This, sadly, results in common and dull word choices that don’t describe much of anything. Here’s a quick list of some of the common verbs people will use instead of strong verbs.

1. Sit

2. Walk

3. Run

4. Smile

Okay, you probably get the idea. All of these are weak verbs because they are generic. It doesn’t mean you can never use them, but they certainly shouldn’t make up the entirety of your piece. If you stop and think about it, what image do you get from these words? Run, walk, sit, smile… Those are broad words that could encompass all kinds of ways of doing those things. For example, running could encompass sprinting or a slow, measured run for long-distance. Walking could mean walking fast or strolling along. Sitting… Well, don’t get me started on the number of ways a person can sit! Same goes for a smile. Not every smile is the same, so why would you use only one word to show your character’s smile to the reader?

Hopefully, if you didn’t already see the problem, you do now. Weak verbs, while they can in some cases be necessary, are generally not the best option you have available to you. You want to choose words that are strong, words that are specific. Here are just a few words that could replace the list above.

1. Perch, settle, sink, rest, nestle

2. Meander, stroll, pace, prance, skip

3. Sprint, jog, race, trot, dash, dart

4. Grin, beam, simper, leer, smirk, sneer

See how each of these more specific verbs evokes a particular image in our minds? For example, when we say someone beamed, we know that means they gave a really enthusiastic, happy smile. But if I tell you someone smirked or leered at me? Well… You get an entirely different mental picture there. That’s the power of using strong verbs.

How to Find Strong Verbs

It’s fine to start with a general verb for what you’re trying to convey meaning-wise. Just don’t stay there. Use a thesaurus or online dictionary to find synonyms for the word you’re thinking of using. Consider the list and ask yourself if anything would fit in better than the general word. When doing this, be sure to think about what readers will understand. Don’t pick a $10 word if the $5 one works just as well and is better-known. While it’s fine for a reader to need to look up a word or two here and there, you don’t want them to need a dictionary just to read your story! So be sensible when you’re choosing strong verbs and go with your gut. If you were the reader, what would you best understand? Use that question to evaluate the words and choose accordingly.

Conclusion

Although it is a little more time-consuming to find strong verbs to lend vivacity to your writing, you should be investing that time anyway. It will be time well-spent because it lends a maturity to your writing that other writers who don’t do this will lack. Plus, you learn new vocabulary along the way, so it’s an exercise with multiple benefits! 

Have questions or something to add? Or maybe you have a topic to suggest for a future Thursday Technicalities post? Feel free to leave those in the comments below or email me at arielpaiement@gmail. com with them! I do my best to respond to each question or comment.

Thursday Technicalities: Paragraphing for Effect

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Last Thursday Technicalities, I discussed the importance of sentence structure for your writing. This week, we’re going to take a look at paragraphing, which can be used in similar ways but also has a few unique aspects of its own that sentence structures don’t have.

Let’s take a look!

Paragraphing for Pacing

Much how sentence structure can either slow down or speed up your writing, paragraphing also affects pacing. Long paragraphs tend to slow things down just like long sentences do, while short ones speed things up.

In formal and academic writing, most of us were taught that paragraphs had to be at least three to four sentences long in order to be a paragraph. For fiction writing, throw that notion out the window.

Paragraphs can be one sentence.

But they can also be much more than the eight-sentence maximum advised for academic writing. It all depends on what you need for your writing. For pacing and for a few other reasons I’ll get to in a moment, you may wish to have a very short paragraph or a very long one. These are choices that depend solely upon what you wish to accomplish and how.

Paragraphing for Emphasis

This one’s relatively straightforward. If you have something that really needs to jump off the page at the reader, putting it into its own paragraph is often a great way to achieve this. It makes the information stand out and signals to the reader that the information is important, so they should pay attention to it. Especially if you do it after or between long paragraphs. The eye is just naturally drawn to it.

Another important aspect of paragraphing is knowing where to put information in a paragraph. If it’s important, stick it at the beginning or the end. Readers, even in fiction, tend to skip what’s in the middle of a paragraph or skim it quickly, especially if the paragraph is long. So book-end the not-so-important information with what you really want the reader to remember. (This goes for ending and beginning chapters too. Start and end with things that should be memorable and that grab the attention of the reader.)

Paragraphing with Dialogue

I’ll talk more about this in an upcoming post about dialogue do’s and don’ts, but I’d be remiss if I talked about paragraphing without at least mentioning dialogue.

The important takeaway with paragraphing and dialogue is pretty straightforward. You start a new paragraph whenever someone new starts talking, and you start a new paragraph if the actions you’ve written in don’t go with the previous speaker’s dialogue. For example…

Wrong

“Hey, Susan, d’you think you could pass me the ketchup?” Susan eyed her little brother. “You want ketchup on that?” Peter crossed his arms. “What if I do?”

Right

“Hey, Susan, d’you think you could pass me the ketchup?”

Susan eyed her little brother. “You want ketchup on that?”

Peter crossed his arms. “What if I do?”

Now, most people who have learned anything about writing know not to do the things I did in the first one. But many times, I’ll run across beginners who just struggle with paragraphing and formatting dialogue. Once you know the rules, it’s simple, I promise.

But most of the time, writers starting out on their own with no guidance or help, writers who just want to write and don’t know where to start, don’t know how to handle dialogue. That’s fine, and the goal here is to help everyone who struggles with it out.

Basically, stick with the two rules of paragraphing for dialogue, and you should be fine on that front. Start new paragraphs any time someone new starts talking and any time an action doesn’t belong to the owner of the dialogue.

Conclusion

That’s it for this Thursday Technicalities, everyone! I hope it’s provided some useful tips for those who hadn’t learned this information yet and a good refresher for those who had.

What are some of the ways you use paragraphing for emphasis in your writing? Share them in the comments below! If you have any questions, feel free to leave those in the comments too. Until next time, everyone.

Thursday Technicalities: Sentence Structure and Its Impact

Ariel Paiement1 Comment

Introduction

This week, we’re going to take a look at sentence structure. This is where we’ll start for our discussions on the grammar side of writing. If you haven’t already, you should go read my last Thursday Technicalities post on grammar and why it’s important. Once you’ve done that, come back and take a look at sentence structure with me in this article.

Types of Sentence Structures

Some of you may have learned this while others may not have. So, I’m going to briefly discuss the types of sentence structures. Then we’ll take a look at how those structures can be used to create various effects in your writing. That’s the really interesting part that everyone’s actually curious about, right?

First on the list, we have the simple sentence. This consists of a subject and a predicate (one subject, one verb). This would include sentences such as “I run.” or “He plays.” These sentences shouldn’t have a conjunction or a dependent clause.

Next on the list, there’s compound. This sentence structure takes two independent clauses (these would be things that stand on their own as simple sentences), and combines them with a coordinating conjunction (ie: and, or, but, not, etc.).

Third on the list, you have your complex sentence. Here, you have your independent clause, but you tack on a dependent clause. It might read something like this: “If Stacy goes to the mall, I will come.” In this instance, If Stacy goes to the mall is dependent on the independent clause, I will come. So, it’s complex.

Last on the list, we have the compound-complex sentence. This one more or less combines the compound and the complex sentence structures, as the name implies. You’ll need at least two independent clauses and a dependent clause to form this type of sentence structure. The sentence contains both conjunctions and subordinators.

For example, “If Stacy goes to the mall, I will come, and Rob will too,” is a compound-complex sentence. If Stacy goes to the mall forms your dependent clause. I will come is an independent clause. And is the conjunction, and Rob will too is another independent clause. If, in this case, is the subordinator as it is introducing the dependent clause.

Using Sentence Structure for Impact

Now for the fun part. It hardly does much good to know what the sentence structure options are if you don’t know how to effectively use them. So, what does sentence structure do to your story?

Pacing

The first very obvious thing it will do to your story has to do with pacing. Imagine you’re working on a scene that’s tense. Maybe it’s a romantic scene where the couple has finally taken a leap and the guy proposed to the girl. Or, maybe it’s an action scene and there’s a car chase going on.

What kind of sentence structure do you think is best for this? What you choose will convey the urgency or take away from it. If you choose to use a lot of long sentences (such as your compound-complex sentence structure), you’ll bog yourself down. It doesn’t read quickly, and the reader starts to lose focus or interest without even knowing why.

Here’s why. Your writing may be good, but if you didn’t choose a sentence structure to convey the energy of the scene, it just feels off to the reader. It doesn’t grab their attention, and it quickly makes them fall asleep when they should be on the edge of their seat with anticipation.

As a general rule of thumb, you want to use more shorter and choppier sentences for fast-paced scenes and longer, smoother ones for the slower, richer scenes. This helps create a pacing that strings the reader along with you as you weave the story for them.

Changing Things Up

One thing that many beginning writers (and even more advanced writers, in some cases) struggle with is repetition in sentence structure. Maybe the writer prefers short, simple sentences or is prone to long-winded compound-complex sentences that span an entire paragraph. Likely, we’ve all seen authors who fall somewhere on that spectrum.

But there’s one thing that repetitiveness assures. Boredom and irritation. Sentence structure helps to alleviate that when used with variety and wisely.

If you’ve had a lot of short, choppy sentences all in a row, it helps the reader if you throw in a longer sentence to give them a minute to catch their breath. Going back to the earlier point about pacing, you don’t want to create the wrong feeling for the piece, but you also don’t want to entirely wear the reader out or put them to sleep.

Whether you’ve had long, elegant sentences or short, simple ones, using another sentence structure opposite of the previously used structure in the right place can help to give readers a chance to rest or keep them from falling asleep.

Sound and Feel

In a word, sentence structure affects your overall aesthetic. How you say things matters, and sentence structure is interwoven in the very fabric of what you’ve said and how.

This means that if you choose the right sentence structure, the piece will flow in the readers’ minds as they read. It will feel natural, not forced. It will be a beautiful thing, a work of art instead of some words slapped hastily on a page.

One thing I recommend to those who are wondering if their sentence structure feels right is to read it aloud. Doing this forces you not to skip words or try to insert things into the text mentally as you read. Your brain does these things automatically when you edit, so it takes time to train it not to. One of the easiest ways to do that is to read it out loud, either to yourself or to someone else.

It may feel awkward at first to do so, but I promise it helps. As a bonus, it helps you catch other problems or mistakes as well. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve caught a spelling mistake or grammar error simply because I was reading something to someone else. Don’t be afraid of it not being perfect. It won’t be. Never will be, in fact. And that’s okay. You’re not the first to write an awful rough draft, and you won’t be the last. It’s a rough draft for a reason.

Conclusion

Well, that’s it for today! I hope this post has proved helpful. Do you have any other ways that sentence structure has affected your writing? If you do, feel free to leave it in the comments below! If you have any questions, you can leave them in the comments as well, and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Thursday Technicalities: Grammar and Why It’s Important

Ariel Paiement

Introduction

Hey, everyone! Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about grammar. I know, I know… It’s one of the least enjoyable things about writing for lots of people. In fact, I can’t think of any other area of editing or critiquing others’ writing where I’ve been told more times not to pay attention to it in favor of critiquing something else.

So, today we’re going to talk about it and why you need it.

Why Does It Matter?

Lots of beginning writers and even ones who have been writing for a long while seem to feel grammar isn’t as important as the story. In one way, they’re right. In another, they’re very, very wrong.

How can it be both at once? Simple. It’s true that a story with impeccable grammar but terrible plot and characters won’t go anywhere. But at the same time, it’s also true that how you use grammar to tell that story will either shoot your publishing dreams in the foot or make your book stand out that much more.

Grammar matters.

Plain and simple. Whether you hate it or not, it matters. If you can’t write proper sentences or follow the rules, you can’t break them. Or at least, you can’t do so in a way that makes anyone want to keep reading. A few grammar mistakes here and there may not cost you much, but if you decide that proofreading and grammar don’t matter, you’re going to pay dearly in readers.

In a way, grammar is the bedrock of your novel. You have to have it to form the structure and the framework that is the story. Sure, it’s not the part of the house everyone notices. It isn’t necessarily flashy or ornate. Maybe it’s not even fun to look at. But it is necessary or the house topples.

Conclusion

Take the time to really understand the basics of grammar. If you don’t already, do so. I understand that it’s difficult and can sometimes be a bit confusing, especially if English isn’t your first language. But if you’re going to write in English (or your native tongue, even) understand the rules for doing so. It’s going to be one more tool in your tool box, and it’s going to make your writing that much more pleasurable to read because the grammar won’t intrude on the story.

It will set the stage, just as it’s supposed to. But it won’t overshadow the actors on that stage because it is done correctly. That is the importance of grammar.

In upcoming Thursday Technicalities posts, we’ll go over some of the grammar rules that can have a big impact on your story. I’ll show you how these aspects can be used as tools to tell your story your way. Until next time, everyone! Have a great rest of your week.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments if you have them.