"Thanks, Deborah! Glad to see that the pity plea at the end concerning the college fund pulled you in. I'm thinking of tacking this picture of my youngest on at the end. What do you think-- does he look pathetic…"
List of Words that Sparkle! Jazz up your Writing / Pitch / Synopsis (List of blah words to search for too!)
Adjectives and adverbs can make or break a manuscript, pitch or synopsis.
Hint: My best friend while writing? My Thesaurus!!! Awesome site: wwww.Thesaurus.com!!!
Search for not-so-interesting (blah) words like:
bad, hard
good, nice
small, little
large, big, huge
scary, scared, afraid, concerned
new, old
mean, mad
slowly, quietly
happy, sad, sorry
soft(ly), quiet(ly
nervous, shy
mysterious, confused
pretty, beautiful, ugly
slow, fast
You get the picture! (see my previous post on 'List of Weak Words' for 'blah' verbs to look for and change!)
(HINT: Use the find feature in Word, and hightlight all of the above words, then work through your writing to change the highlighted words to more 'sparkly' words (see below, use a thesaurus!). When done improving your work, do a 'select all' and highlight it all, then un-highlight it all. That way, you don't have to go through twenty times and do a 'find' for each word.)
Instead, use jazzy / sparkly words:
scrawny, gangly, robust
yummy, sumptuous, scrumptuous
chilling, desolate, ghoulish, dreadful, fiendish, eerie, putrid, haunting, ferocious, horrendous
gorgeous, glorious, precious
spellbound, cryptic, arcane
animated, salacious, sprited, vivacious, zestful, distressed
jittery, apprehensive, agitated, overwrought, timorous, hysterical
despair, forlorn, morose, heartbroken, somber, wistful, despondent, languishing
captivated, delighted, thrilled, blissful, gratified
esoteric, inexplicable, obscure, mystical, incomprehensible, symbolic, unfathomable
murmuring, soundlessly, tacitly, faintly
alluring, bewitching, dazzling, angelic, radiant, stunning
appalling, grotesque, hideous, repulsive, repugnant, revolting
delirious, demented, deranged, frantic, frenzied, ludicrous, preposterous
and of course, sparkly!!!
Again, you get the picture! Remember: www.thesaurus.com!!!!
Print this off and save it for when you are editing or writing - especially the ever-important pitch!!!
Please share your blah words and your jazzy words with us!!! Any other helpful hints? Cheers!! Jan
Comment
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Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on October 11, 2011 at 5:26pm -
You are so welcome Candy! Thanks for dropping in!!! Cheers! Jan (with a clink and a slurp!)
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Comment by Candy Fite on October 11, 2011 at 3:25pm -
Am loving the lists, Jan! Thanks for taking the time to do these!
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Comment by Jan Fischer Wade on October 11, 2011 at 12:17pm
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Hi Kay Dee! Thanks for stopping by and thanks for sharing your resources! I'm going to check those out! Jan
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Comment by Kay Dee Royal on October 11, 2011 at 11:55am -
Jan - you are amazing...thank you for sharing. I have a big red book called The Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale - I love it!! I also just picked up Oxford American Writer's Thesaurus. Both great tools for a writer's toolbox *grins*
Thanks for sharing the online Thesaurus link.
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