Descriptive verbs paint a picture

Talk about painting a picture. In City of Bohane, Kevin Barry brings the titular town to life in sentences like this:

“Amputee walnut sellers croaked their prices from tragic blankets on the scarred tile floors …”

And:

“The tottering old chimneys were stacked in great deranged happiness against the morning sky.”

And:

“He had a blackbird’s poppy-eyed stare, thyroidal, and if his brow was no more than an inch deep, it was packed with an alley rat’s cunning.”

Notice what these descriptive passages have in common: They set the scene with nouns and adjectives. When setting a scene, we tend to describe people and things.

But we need to show action, too.

Choose descriptive verbs.

If the verb is the story — and I think it is — then good description means choosing verbs as carefully as you choose nouns.

Light up readers’ brains. After all, we know that when people read strong action verbs like write and throw, their motor cortexes — the part of the brain that coordinates the body’s movements — light up, according to research by cognitive scientist Véronique Boulenger of the Laboratory of Language Dynamics in France.

When they read nouns like mill and cliff, their motor cortexes stay dark. Even more interesting, one part of the motor cortex lights up when people read about arm movements, while a different part does when they read about leg action.

How can you choose verbs that light up your readers’ brains?

Test your copy.

First, find out how hard your verbs are working now:

1. Open your latest story and highlight all the verbs.

2. Scan the highlighted words. Ask, are these verbs:

• Sensual? Can you see, hear, feel, taste or smell them?
• Precise? Hobbled says something that meandered does not. But what picture does walked slowly paint?
• Distinctive? Avoid typical PR verbs like launches, announces and introduces. Instead, go for verbs that describe what your readers will be able to do differently after your launch.
• Active? Activate the passive voice.
• Strong? To be verbs are not to be.
• Short? When it comes to verbs, one syllable is best, two are OK and three are a little long. So choose one-syllable verbs whenever possible.

3. Rewrite your verbs. Finally, use Visual Thesaurus to come up with just the right substitute for your weak verbs.

Model the masters.

Now that you’ve checked out your own copy, find writers whose verbs inspire you. Highlight your favorite passages on your e-reader and review them when your writing feels a little wan.

Among my favorite verb masters:

Jeffrey Eugenides. In The Marriage Plot, he writes:

“A ficus tree endured in the corner.”

Karen Russell. In Swamplandia!, she writes:

“Ghosts silked into our bedroom like cold water.”

Markus Zusak. In The Book Thief, he writes:

“Farther down, the church aimed itself at the sky,
its rooftop a study of collaborated tiles.”

And:

“‘You little slut!’ he roared at her. The words clobbered her in the back.”

And:

“The slippery ground slurped at their feet …”

And:

” … the gun clipped a hole in the night.”

More reasons to invigorate your verbs

Strong verbs make your description more descriptive. Other benefits of strengthening your verbs:

• You need fewer adverbs when you choose strong verbs.
• Benefits are verbs, not nouns.
• The verb is the story; strong verbs in the headline tell a better story.

June writing contest

How could you use more descriptive verbs to breathe new life into your copy? Let’s try it. Send Ann your best passage describing action with interesting verbs. She’ll publish the best in Rev Up Readership and Wylie’s Writing Tips.

And, if yours is the best of the best, you’ll get a gift from Ann.

Make Your Copy More Creative

Want to communicate better with creative copy?

• Get it off your desk: Invite Ann’s team to handle a creative writing or editing project.
• Polish staff skills: Bring Ann to your organization for a Make Your Copy More Creative workshop.
• Boost your own abilities: Work with Ann to Make Your Copy More Creative in one-on-one writing coaching. Or find out about Ann’s next Art of the Storyteller webinar.
• Learn more: Read Ann’s learning tools on storytelling, metaphor and human interest. And get free writing tips every month when you subscribe to our e-zine.
• Join the club: Get the whole story in the latest issue of Rev Up Readership. Find dozens of tipsheets on creative copywriting at RevUpReadership.com.

___

Sources: Annie Murphy Paul, “Your Brain on Fiction,” The New York Times, March 17, 2012

Véronique Boulenger, Beata Y. Silber, Alice C. Roy, Yves Paulignan, Marc Jeannerod and Tatjana A. Nazir, “Subliminal display of action words interferes with motor planning: A combined EEG and kinematic study,” Journal of Physiology-Paris, Vol. 102, Issues 1–3, January-May 2008, pp. 130-136