Type one of the 76 flat words writers lean on (walk, said, went, very, big) and get the stronger alternatives from our dead-words dataset, paired with example sentences from the 991 entries in our vivid word banks. Or browse the banks directly by category.
The lookup covers the 76 weak verbs, adjectives, nouns, intensifiers and filler qualifiers from our dead-words dataset. Or browse the vivid word banks below.
Browse the vivid word banks
104 of 104 words, each with its example sentence.
Why precision beats intensity: show, don't tell
Telling: She was nervous.
Showing: She pressed her thumbnail into the meat of her palm.
Telling: Don't tell me the moon is shining.
Showing: Show me the glint of light on broken glass. (Chekhov)
Telling: The grandmother was vain and obsessed with propriety.
Showing: She has dressed carefully for the trip because if there is an accident, anyone who sees her dead will know she was a lady. (Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find")
Telling: She was nervous before the interview.
Showing: She sat in the waiting room rereading the same paragraph four times, each time forgetting what she had read.
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The lookup runs on the same dead-words dataset behind ourDead Word Sandbox: weak verbs, weak adjectives, vague nouns, intensifiers and filler qualifiers, each with the alternatives writers usually reach for instead. The example sentences come from the site's word banks, including thevivid verbs list. When an alternative has no example sentence, that is because no bank contains one: nothing here is generated.
A precise verb usually beats a weak verb plus an adverb. "She strode into the room" carries more than "she walked quickly into the room", and it is two words shorter. The same goes for adjectives: cutting "very" and choosing a sharper core word almost always tightens the line. Use the sandbox to find the flat words in a full draft, then this finder to pick the replacement.
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