Does Your Verb Have Muscles?
Your sentences may come complete with a subject and a verb, but have you checked how much weight they can carry? Are they weak? Do they sound like they will crumble at the touch of a heavy lump of steel?
The image of a muscular strongman is what you need to invoke when gauging the strength of your verbs. Strong verbs, put simply, can carry their own weight, lending your sentences the power they need to make a stronger impact.
What makes these muscular, power-packed verbs the strong figures of speech they are?
- They are colorful.
- They are action-based (instead of being-based).
- They tighten up language (reducing wordiness).
- They create a clearer, more vivid image in the reader’s mind.
It’s not the worst thing in the world to find an overabundance of weak verbs in your writing (such as “to be,” “is,” and “to have”). Even your favorite writing software won’t complain (okay, maybe it will throw out a warning). Despite that, you’d want to trade them in for stronger ones if you’re hoping to draw deeper interest from readers.
Just as most people would rather be looking at a billboard with a muscular man than a skinny man (which is why male models have fit, strong bodies), they’d also rather read a piece with muscular verbs. Would you rather that your writing be muscle-bound and strong or be weak and unhealthy?