33Ditch Weakling Verbs
Ditch weakling verbs in favor of bold action words if you want to breathe life into your writing.
Use expressive verbs when you can—when you are describing actions people take or events that occur—because they paint a vivid picture in the reader's mind. With strong verbs your sentences come alive; they throb with a pulse.
- Instead of: It might seem like a good idea, but it is probably not in good taste to put a QR code on your loved one's tombstone.
- Try: It might seem like a good idea, but it is probably not in good taste to etch a QR code on your loved one's tombstone.
- Instead of: In his anger, he accidentally cut his finger.
- Try: In his anger, he accidentally slashed his finger.
You should strike a balance here, of course, just as you would with most things in life. The trick is to avoid overdoing it with so many action verbs that you give the reader whiplash. That's overwriting, and your text will read like a supermarket romance novel or the diary of a hormonal teenager.
Neither of which, I hope, you'd be intending to emulate.
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