Becoming a more effective writer (and communicator) is as easy as switching drab vocab for worthier ones that do the work of entire phrases. Lemme show you how.
Back when I was working for the local business paper, I played a game with my editor. Into every article, I'd sneak a word unlikely to make it to the actual page just to see if he was paying attention. That was last century and just the other day, he mentioned it on LinkedIn. It was fun.
Later on, I penned quarterly overviews of notable commercial real estate trends and transactions for another business rag. When you write a bunch of the same kind of thing all at once, it's easy to repeat the same words, like declined, rose, increased, decreased, grew, contracted...you get the idea. It only took my editor dinging me on that once to get me to pay particular attention to verbs. And that, as regular readers know, is where I train my sights when editing and coaching.
Why focus on verbs
Verbs tell us what happened/happens/is happening. The best verbs, though, inform us of an action AND how it looks, feels, is performed. They provide additional context (often supported by connotation) and create a feel or rhythm by the way the sound. I've written about this with loads of examples before. (See Writing Advice: Boost impact with visual verbs.)
Visual verbs you can use today
Here are some examples I pulled from a report I edited today. Some were already there, others were put in by me. All of them reduce repetition, improve concision, establish a mood and tell a more compelling story:
- Abate
- Anchor
- Ascend
- Catapult
- Chronicle
- Cluster
- Ebb
- Narrow
- Pinch
- Skid
- Slide
- Slip
- Slump
- Snap
- Squeeze
- Vault
The best way to swap in stronger verbs is to come back to them. Go ahead and slam out that draft, then do a read-through specifically looking at each verb and considering alternatives. Maybe even push it a little to see if you can find one folks won't know, but can figure out from context clues. Or not. Unlike my editor, your boss might not find that amusing.