People have a tendency to use weak nouns. These creeps will lurk in your prose unless you take action to replace them with nouns that glisten. If you pick excellent nouns, it will make the world in your head come to life because it will show your reader things about your character and their surroundings.
What's the difference between a weak noun and a strong one?
"George stepped on a snake."
Well, that's nice. But what kind of snake was it? Was it a cobra? Grass snake? Rattler? By inserting a stronger noun (any kind of snake) it makes the noun active in the person's imagination.
Here are a few more weak nouns to watch out for.
"Tom jumped into his car and drove away."
What kind of car? If he's driving a Mustang, that gives me a different impression of the person than if he's driving a 1970 Beetle.
"Emily was a student."
Freshman? Sophomore? Middle school?
Remember, you don't need more nouns; just stronger ones.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Using Strong words
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4 comments:
Those were very good words. Ahem, I mean, excellent advice!
Hey, I'm Ashley. The girl from the Writers Bloc group, I thought I should warn you so I don't look like a lurker. For some reason my display name won't change...;( That advice really helped me in a short story I am working on. Thanks!
Excellent; I love it when I can use that word!
You could always change your name to Rosalie. :)
Superb! I'll have to keep that in mind more... You hear a lot about strong verbs and adjectives, but nouns aren't always so thought of.
Cool picture!
-Catey
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