Jet Fuel For Writing

Powerful communicating depends on high octane fuel.  The good news is the best stuff is near to hand…and it’s free.  What powers writing, you ask?  VERBS, I answer.  Yes, verbs, along with adjectives and adverbs, are the gasoline that makes your writing take off.

You never hear a sports caster tell his audience that the baseball player “hit a home run.”  No, the player “clubbed the ball into the bleachers, he belted it, he smacked it, he ripped it into the right field stands.  He spanked Mr. Spaulding, tore the cover off it, launched it into the Fenway stratosphere.”  See the difference?  Writers “tear the cover off it” when they understand the use of powerful verbs to energize their writing and their audience.

Adverbs, which modify verbs, and adjectives, which modify nouns, also add horsepower to your writing.  And, when you throw in a metaphor (or simile) or two, you truly have high octane writing.  A metaphor, in case you’re not a word geek like me, is when you say something is “like” something else.  A simile occurs when a writer says something is something else.

A novelist rarely tells her reader that her heroine has clear green eyes.  Nope, the ladies eyes are “emerald ice.”  Her lips are like rosebuds and her words touched lightly in his ears like the first warm breeze of spring.  Metaphors and similes make writing come alive…and they’ll do the same for your product or service.

I’m not saying you should turn every corporate E-mail or press conference into a romance novel or the Superbowl.  I am saying a well placed power verb, metaphor or simile, makes writing stand out; and, more importantly makes it stick in the listeners or readers memory.

That’s what we’re after:  communication that hangs around, that the audience remembers.  When the occasion arises, make it memorable with communication jet fuel.

Personally, I collect them.  While I’m reading, or listening, or, heck, doing almost anything, I’ll make a note of a powerful verb, a good metaphor, or a well placed descriptive adjective or adverb.

Then, as the need arises, I’ll mine the collection for the gold nugget of communication I’ll need to power my writing.  Every good writer I know does the same.  You should, too.  Collect good phrases and good verbs the same way we’ve advised you to collect good personal stories and anecdotes to use in your writing.

Remember, dry rarely sells.  It won’t sell your product, your idea, or your point of view.  Pump up your communication with words that have impact; and, when it makes sense, words that hit your audience with the impact of a meteor the size of a Volkswagen.

That kind of verbal fuel will power your communications to speeds that could leave you breathless.

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