Improving Your Vocabulary
Tips on how you can expand your vocabulary by learning and properly using new and bigger words.

Replacing Certain Words and Parts Of Sentences

           Alrighty, let's say you're working on your very first fic. (Some of you who read this already might have done your first fic a long long time ago, but lets keep this to the very basic stuff for now... mmkay?) Let's imagine a scene where two characters are in a race, and they're both very close in terms of position. Let's give these characters some names... How about John and Andy, okay? Okay. Now, any author might take the easy way around a complicated scene and write something that might look a little like this:

       John and andy were both very close, but andy was leading and john was close behind him.

           Though theres really nothing wrong with writing it like that, some people might not be able to make any sense out of it. So let's expand that by adding and taking away a few words here and there, like this:

       John and Andy were fighting for the first place position, and Andy was ahead by a little bit. John struggled to use all his energy to keep up with him.

           Instead of saying leading like in the first sentence, I replaced that with ahead. Though they are very different words, they can mean the same thing, it just depends on how you use them. Using these other words however can sometimes mislead others into confusion. You'll need to learn and remember when the best times are to bring in these words. One example would be if you replaced leading with fast:

       John and andy were both very close, but andy was fast and john was close behind him.

           Now compare that with:

       John and Andy were fighting for the first place position, and Andy was fast by a little bit. John struggled to use all his energy to keep up with him.

           Doesn't make much sense does it?

Adding Sentences and Making Others Longer or Shorter

           Well, from our first example sentence, you'll notice we've added a few sentences, and even took away a few or more words. One of the many bunches of words that were replaced were these ones: were both very close was replaced with fighting for the first place position. By adding in more words and replacing others, you add more depth to your story, and at the same time, make your reader want to read on.

           but andy was leading and john was close behind him was changed to and Andy was ahead by a little bit.

"So why's it shorter, I thought we were making sentences longer and stuff!"

           Because, there's just some sentences that are already there that have to be taken apart and made into totally new sentences.

       John struggled to use all his energy to keep up with him.

           Believe it or not, this whole sentence was taken and reworded from this:

       john was close behind him.

           You see, both parts still show that John is somewhere close behind Andy, both parts still say that John is trying to keep up, ( otherwise Andy wouldn't be winning ;] ) The only difference is that in the revised version, we said that John was actually using his energy to keep up. Details like that are often overlooked, but can be very crucial when you're writing an adventure or action fic.



Thank you for taking the time to read through my article. I hope it helps you in some way to improve on your writing, and become a better author. If you need more information, be on the lookout for my next couple of articles that will teach using proper sentence structure, and proper punctuation.
Ciao baby!


-ATK