A handy guide for when you’re writing that first draft and the thought of describing a face as pretty fills you with more dread than submitting your book to an agent.
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Great handy list of synonyms thanks Nicholas. 🙂
Thanks! So glad you found them useful 🙂
Reblogged this on bhalsop and commented:
Nicholas has given us a wonderful quick chart of synonyms for certain overused words!
I’m not sure there is anything more dreadful than submitting a MS to an agent. This is splendid and thank you. (yes I chose splendid from the list)
Lol – glad to see you’re already putting the list to good use!
Handy indeed! I sometimes struggle with verb synonyms for walk. There are so many and reflect the character’s attitude, so it’s important to get them right: strode, marched, strolled, sauntered, padded, trudged, sashayed, crossed, walked up to, fell in stride with … I’m not even halfway down that list! 🙂
When writing, I always have two screens open. On my left, I have Word open, with two documents: the manuscript, and the aptly titled help.doc, where I list my favourite phrases, notes on the story, character traits etc. Whenever I read a book, I’ll highlight words that excite me and copy them to help.doc for later use.
On the right-hand screen, I have a browser with thesaurus.com, dictionary.com and translate.google.com (in case a word comes to me in another language first).
Come to think of it, I should make a blog post about this… 🙂
I have an app on my phone from dictionary.com that has a built in thesaurus. I’m content with my own initial selection of words, I just have to punch up the app from time to time to ensure I’m not constantly reusing the same word and becoming repetitive. 🙂
That’s an excellent tip, thanks for sharing!
As I was just saying in my reply to another comment, I use two screens. On the right-hand one, I always have a browser window when writing, with thesaurus.com and dictionary.com open. I also have Roget’s Thesaurus standing by (hard copy, a kind gift from a dear friend), as well as a couple of more books, such as the Emotional Thesaurus.