The Ultimate Fiction Thesaurus - A Creative Writing Study

The Ultimate Fiction Thesaurus - A Creative Writing Study

There are a thousand ways to say something and at least a few hundred to express it well. This is not simply another thesaurus but a writing lesson which aims to shave a year off of your creative development. This is a bold objective but as you go over these devices in this brief but power tutorial, it will train you to think like a novelist. Let’s see how this works:<br /><br />First we start with a character description: Bill has grey hair.<br /><br />This is a fine description, and certainly direct, but let’s flex our muscles a little more:<br /><br />Bill’s hair is salted with grey.<br />Bill’s hair is frosted with age.<br />Bill’s hair is threaded with silver.<br /><br />Now try these concept words on your own: peppered, streaked, flecked, weeded<br /><br />You can immediately see the limitations of a traditional thesaurus; they are helpful at supplying literal equivalents, such as charcoal for grey, but frequently miss the finer nuances of language.<br /><br />Beyond the inspirational support most books offer, I can assure that two things, and only two, are guaranteed to improve your writing. These are reading and the act of writing itself. This is a unique ‘literary thesaurus’ that bridges the gap of reading by taking common descriptive devices and words and places them into usable categories that will serve as a ready toolbox for your own writing. <br /><br />This study is ideal for beginning and intermediate fiction writers.