Ok, question- what’s another way to say ‘shrugged’? Because I feel like I’ve been using that word so much, but it’s what my characters are doing, and I think that it conveys something.

Well, there are different types of shrugging. Some people tilt their head. Others toss their hair. Some others lift a hand in a sweeping motion. And then, of course, there’s the classic shoulder shrug. Try varying up their shrugging motions a bit based on the characters.

For example, the first time a character shrugs:

Lorie tossed her hair back in her typical shrug. “I don’t know.”

And later on in the story:

“Where do you want to go?”

Lorie just tossed her head, sending her brown bangs behind her right shoulder, and looked at Anne.

It has the added bonus of allowing you to describe the characters’ appearances without disrupting the flow of action. :D

You could always describe in detail, a la Paolini

Except that I actually had to have someone point out to me that Saphira was shrugging. You can’t describe in too much detail else the main action will get lost.

The verb that I use far too much is ‘sigh’.

Me too. D:

I think it’s because people sigh quite a lot, in many different contexts. There’s the contented sigh, the weary sigh, the lonely/wistful sigh, the long-suffering sigh, the frustrated sigh (though I tend to use ‘growl’ for frustration), the sigh of complaint (huff?) and a few others. It’s just such a universal action, but with onyl one really nice, proper word to cover it.

Yes! Then I want to animate it or sketch it. Or film it.

Here’s another word I have trouble with- smile.

There’s the grin, which is rather mischevious, the smirk, which is condescending, but what about a really sweet, sincere smile?

(I have a character who smiles a lot in this specific scene, and it’s kind of weird to say that ‘she smiled’, ‘she smiled’, ‘she smiled’. And repetitive. And boring. And you get the point.)

I really overuse “turn” also, even in nonaction scenes. You can use “whirl” if it’s appropriate, although in my experience it wears out really quick if you use it too frequently.

I’d also like to say that I hate the word “smirk,” since every doucherocket antihero who’s supposed to be all edgy and sardonic(another word I hate) and snarky tends to smirk constantly. I think I’ve used it only maybe two or three times in ~110k words, and only the villain does it, since he’s an asshole.

If you really need to have your person smiling repeatedly, I don’t think having “X verbed” is going to be that much better than “X smiled” if it’s the only way you go about it. You’ll probably need to get creative and find a more abstract way to reference repeated smiling without simply cycling synonyms.

Sorry that’s such fuzzy advice X(

snarky tends to smirk constantly.

^{The protagonist in my story smirks almost constantly. But he’s supposed to be arrogant and stuffs, so…}

I have a problem with the word “turn”, which I use a lot in action scenes. The only other synonyms that I can readily think of are “spin” and “rotate”, and the latter sounds out of place for an action scene.

Gyrate?

@ SWQ: I think it means you pinch them together to indicate displeasure.

I like whirl for an action scene.

Yeah, either that, or… well, it sounds like dancing. Not really fighting.

Saying ‘gyrate’ was actually rather tongue-in-cheek.

Sorry for the confusion.

Do you want me to Paolini-ise that one too?

Eragon sensed something warm and large directly behind him. Slowly he rotated his body, keeping his feet flat on the ground and flexing his knees to beware of any sudden movement. His head twisted to the side, his blue eyes alert and darting to the side like fighting fish, exactly the way his body wasn’t. His hand moved in minute increments to reach his sword, should it become necessary.

Which way is widdershins?

“in a direction contrary to the natural one, esp. contrary to the apparent course of the sun or counterclockwise: considered as unlucky or causing disaster.”
According to dictionary.com, that is what widdershins means.

I saved you sansa.

Aha! I believe it was… Roran that spun widdershins? I always knew he would cause disaster…

It sounds like a name. Willy Widdershins. It acutally sounds familiar…

Ah yes. He set up a series of regurgitating toilets and was arrested by the ministry of magic.
So even if using it as an adverb is ridiculous, at least you can make it into a great last name. :)

In Lemony Snicket’s series A Series of Unfortunate Events, Captain Widdershins was the captain of the Queequeg, his submarine. He was the stepfather of Fiona and Fernald, who was missing. In The Grim Grotto, he finds Klaus, Violet, and Sunny Baudelaire at sea when he was looking for the sugar bowl, and takes them aboard the Queequeg. He is extremely emphatic, with almost all of his sentences being exclamations, and permeates his speech with the word “Aye!”. His personal philosophy is “He who hesitates is lost”, which the Baudelaires find to be unreasonable.

After sending the Baudelaires and Fiona into the Gorgonian Grotto in The Grim Grotto, he and Phil appear to desert the Queequeg. In The Penultimate Peril, Kit Snicket says that she went water-skiing in order to find Captain Widdershins, but it is likely that she failed.

I googled it.

Pearl spends too much time on Google.

Widdershins has been around for ages.

Do I detect sarcasm there?

Which way is widdershins?

It’s left. :D
HUGH LAURIE! I love him.

Resurrecting this thread to relay an interesting bit of information:

According to Wikipedia (haven’t had the change to do more in depth research) if your story takes place in the 1800, it’s actually all right to use the word ‘okay’ in dialog, although maybe not in all the ways we use it now. Now I can use it in my WIP!

I have again been reminded I use “turn” way, way too much.

Potentially it could be, since most people have no idea what it means.

Alternatively, you could try describing the feeling itself, rather than relying on a foreign-language catchphrase that doesn’t really do it justice in the first place.

I tend to overuse ‘grin’ and ‘smile’ (but not interchangeably). Also, I overuse ‘also’ like it was going out of fashion.

Alternatively, you could try describing the feeling itself, rather than relying on a foreign-language catchphrase that doesn’t really do it justice in the first place.

This was my other option and I think it’s better. Thanks for the input, everyone.

This is really more of a stylistic question, but this thread seems like the closest thing. I’m rewriting on of my tent-pole scenes right now, and the key feature in it is repeated lightning strikes outside allowing two people fighting to see each others’ shadows through paper walls. It just seems lame to write “lightning struck again” so I figured I’d put some kind of repeated cue whenever it happened. Like, as an example:

[stuff happening in the dark]

Crack.

[stuff happening while it’s briefly lit]

Anybody have any opinion on it?

I like the idea of using an italicized crack.

the key feature in it is repeated lightning strikes outside allowing two people fighting to see each others’ shadows through paper walls

Might I just say that sounds freakin’ awesome?

Does lightning crack, though? I would use “Flash.“ personally. I mean, unless it’s right next to you, lightning doesn’t actually have a sound that I know of.

They’re right in the middle of the storm, and I figure any lightning bolts close enough to believably light up the building are close enough to the listener for the thunder to be essentially simultaneous.

Conveniently, I just heard some distant thunder. Time to get my write on, I guess.

Doublepost- I have been overusing the word ‘curious’ and related versions. I don’t know, there’s something about that particular connotation that ‘inquisitive’ or ‘inquiring’ doesn’t quite cover.

Hmmm…maybe I’ll just overuse curious now and fix it later. XP

Oh, me too.

I overuse the word awesome. I better start looking for an appropriate word to replace it.