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WRITING WORKSHOP IDEAS

In my writing workshops, I often stress the need to use better descriptive language and to avoid being lazy when we're working on a story. To accomplish this, we sometimes try to find many different ways to say the same thing as a part of a writing exercise. We're always looking for more than just the synonyms that we can find in a computer dictionary. We want to find all the related shades of meaning that add to the power of our language.

For example, we could write, "His voice was loud." Instead, I often challenge students to find more interesting ways to help us hear that loud voice in our imagination. Since I ask others to do this, I sat down one day and tried to come up with a list of my own. I ended up with over sixty ways of filling in the blank, "His voice was ...

See if you can find some good ones that I missed. Here is my list.

audacious
banging
barking
bawling
bellowing
belting
big
blaring
blasting
blatant
blazing
blustering
boisterous
bold
booming
braying
brazen
calling
clamorous
clapping
clarion
crashing
crying
deafening
drummed
ear-piercing
ear-splitting
earth-shaking
echoing
explosive
forte
fortissimo
full
fulminating
heroic
hollering
howling
huge
noisy
obstreperous
pounding
powerful
ranting
resounding
reverberating
ringing
roaring
rumbling
screaming
shouting
shrieking
sonorous
stentorian
strident
strong
thundering
tumultuous
uproarious
vehement
vociferous
whooping
window-rattling
yelling

A related frustration for writing teachers is the overuse of the phrase, "He said."
Drawing on the list above, we now have new possibilities. One could write, "He ...

barked
bawled
bellowed
blared
blustered
boomed
called
clamored
cried
exploded
hollered
pounded
ranted
resounded
roared
rumbled
screamed
shouted
shrieked
thundered
whooped
yelled

Now it's your turn. Find another descriptive word, and see how many ways you can make it even more interesting. Have fun!