Adjective rejects and verbs for wonders!
Too many adjectives in advertising copy can ruin the effect altogether. Words like fantastic, sleepy, idiotic and huge are all adjectives. Adjectives can also be invented by some zany copywriter, and can be hyphenated.
When we were in school, we were urged to use more adjectives in order to ‘improve’ our writing skills. The thesaurus was our best friend in those days, faithfully giving our words new meanings. But there are a few problems with the over-use of adjectives:
- Adjectives can be very vague at times. One word can mean a lot of things. Take the word ‘awesome for instance’. It could mean ‘awesome stunt’ or ‘awesome boil at the back of his neck’! And these are just two examples. A lot of times, adjectives hide the true meaning of a sentence rather than tell us what it really is about.
- Adjectives can be perceived in different ways. Copy is always written to impress people. But what if the very word that is meant to make a good impression offends some one? This can be a disaster, and we don’t want that to happen, do we?
- The use of too many adjectives can make copy sound a little too over-excited. It will sound like you are trying to push a product or service into the consumer’s face. And this is one thing that all consumers hate. What works instead is providing readers with good, solid information that they can rely on. Don’t try to sound desperate, when you can convince the reader in other ways. And in most cases, using too many adjectives will lead to this most undesirable effect.
So if we want to cut down on our adjective use, what’s the next option? The answer is simple. Verbs!
Verbs add a lot of presence to your writing, and can be used to express thoughts beautifully. In short, verbs can paint a picture in the readers’ minds.
Here are a few ways in which you can harness the power of verbs and use them to your advantage:
- Try and change passive verbs like ‘is’ and ‘am’ with action verbs. For example, “Mark was a grade A student” can become “Mark always earned his A’s is school”
- Add character to your verbs; for instance, the word ‘drink’ can be replaced with sip’ or ‘gulp’. This makes the sentence even more interesting than it already is.
- Expressive verbs that reflect sound like ‘the dog yelped’ or ‘the baby giggled’ should be used whenever possible, but not too often either.
- It would be good to collect a list of powerful verbs, so that you will be able to use them when necessary. As and when you come across a good verb while reading, jot it down, so you will have something new to use every time you write.
So, the moral of the story is this: Stop using so many adjectives, and use more verbs. You will find that your writing becomes lot better!
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