Once upon a time, there was a self-publishing podcast from which sprung the Facebook group The Smarter Artist. To create a platform where indie-writers could meet like-minded editors, a bunch of editors within this group of writers created the spin-off group The Smarter Artist Editors. Long story short, a dedicated few started a weekly thread sharing editing tips with the community, and we’re now ready to share these tips with the world.
Today, I’m sharing a tip from myself.
Happy Friday, everyone!
Just so you know, this is the last post of the year. After the holidays, we’ll get back to you 😉 If there are topics you want us to discuss, please let me or any of the others know and we’ll look into it!
I recently shared a list of tips on how to avoid telling, and Tip 6 was about avoiding adverbs.
One of my own all-time favourite resources when it comes to avoiding adverbs is The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi.
In the book, they list 75 emotions and provide ways to describe PHYSICAL SIGNALS, INTERNAL SENSATIONS, MENTAL RESPONSES, CUES OF ACUTE OR LONG-TERM [fill in emotion], and CUES OF SUPPRESSED [fill in emotion].
Because the book provides ways to describe both bodily as more internal signals and processes, it offers a way out of saying someone or did something cheerily, happily, depressedly, anxiously, affectionately, curiously, warily, and so on no matter the Point of View you use in your writing. Does that sound useful or what? 😉
Does any of you have a copy of The Emotion Thesaurus? If yes, what do you use it most for?
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