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Robin Coyle

Tag Archives: Overusing the Word Went

Strong vs Weak Words ~ Part 1 ~ Went

29 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by robincoyle in In Search . . ., Strong vs Weak Words

≈ 71 Comments

Tags

Overused Words, Overusing the Word Went, Strong Verbs, Strong vs Weak Words, Strong Words, Weak Verbs, Weak Words, Went, writers, writing, Writing Advice

Stop the presses folks.

I discovered another innocuous verb lying flat on the pages of my manuscript.

“Went”

The word “went” is mild-mannered, but it serves to dam the flow of the story, cause the reader yawn, and make an “action-scene” read as exciting as the phone book.

Like other sneaky little weak words such as “got” and “that,” when edited out, the sentences belt out a song rather than hum off-key. Here are a couple examples of the passive-aggressive “went” torn from the pages of my book.

I went home and cried.

Oh yeah? Big deal. So I changed it to:

Dejected, I crawled home and cried.

~~~~~~~~ 

Angry, I went into my boss’s office.

Boy, you really showed her! The re-written sentence became:

Angry, I slammed open the door to my boss’s office.

I challenge you to search for the weak word “went” in your writing and see if you can change it to a strong verb with pizazz. Let me know what you find.

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