Contratimes Writing Tip #1: Behold The Verb

I hear a lot from folks who wish they could become better writers. I empathize: I want to be a better writer, too. So, I am excited to announce a new thing here at Contratimes: Contratimes Writing Tips. I hope you will find this occasional feature helpful as you strive to perfect your craft.

One little note: there is nothing said here that is absolute (at least I don't think it is). Writing is a varied and wondrous art. It is impossible to reduce it to simple rules. The tips that are presented here will be exactly that –– tips –– simple suggestions that will help and hopefully never hurt. Consider them little tricks to add to your repertoire.

Tip #1. Use strong verbs

Great writers are surely masters of description, fixing a reader's attention to the essential details of scene, place, time. But most emerging writers misunderstand this part of a writer's very essential work: They think and see adjectives, missing the verbs. Hence, young writers in particular are all about adjectives, jamming descriptives here and there and just about everywhere else.

Yesterday morning, while wearing a mauve IZOD polo shirt, Eddie Bauer chinos and Sperry Top Siders, I walked out of my red aluminum office breezeway and noticed something across the asphalt street. The red brick schoolhouse, built in a rococo style, was on fire. Great red and orange flames could be seen against the midnight-dark smoke. Immediately I went to the nearby firehouse, a red cedar and pine gambrel nestled between two large red maples, and I told the fire chief the news. Red firetrucks quickly left the red cedar-with-a-barn-motif firehouse and went to the scene.

Pretty good, eh?

Now how about this:

Yesterday, when I stepped out of my office, I spotted smoke pouring out of the school across the street. Brilliant flames crackled behind the windows, with panes of glass bursting out everywhere. I rushed to the nearby firehouse, screaming for help. Firefighters instantly bolted toward the scene; firetrucks raced madly down the street, sirens blaring. Hoses were pulled, ladders raised. Flames hissed and steamed at blasts of water jetting through shattered glass as firemen frantically aimed their nozzles. One fireman, teetering on the slippery roof, smashed massive holes through broken tiles, as plumes of heat belched forth in swirling, volcanic fury. Smoke blacked out the sun. Paramedics scrambled toward victims. It seemed the whole street trembled ...

OK. Maybe not any better, but you get the point. Great writing bursts not with static but active description. Readers don't really care if the flames are red, they want to know what the flames are doing, eating, ravaging, scorching. Readers don't care if a man is wearing Ralph Lauren when he is moving down the sidewalk, they care that he is sprinting. Think action, not adjective. Paint with verbs.

Seriously, great writers use great verbs.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2006/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.

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