The thesaurus is my best friend.
The thesaurus is my acquaintance, pal, ally, associate, colleague.
Nah… the thesaurus is my best friend.
I use the electronic tool from my word processing software constantly (continually, always, repetitively) when I write. I have a phrase in mind; I type what I think, but it’s not always what I imagined, so I go to (click on, look up, check) the thesaurus tool. A list of synonyms pop up; I try different ones to see what fits. Sometimes I stay with my original word choice; other times I find a better word.
In this excerpt, Lyra learns a little of David’s background. The words in capitals are words I looked up in my handy-dandy thesaurus.
“I am the reason Thaddeus [David’s older brother who was killed in a terrorist attack] was in Rahma. I am the reason he met Moto.”
“I don’t understand.” Lyra wants to draw nearer, to comfort him, but she holds herself back. She thought she knew David, even if they’d only met a few days ago. There was a connection between them, instantaneous and real and it has only been STRENGTHENED by their INTENSE experiences together since. Lyra doesn’t want to lose that connection and it hurts to hear that David is willing to sacrifice it.
“Strengthened”: Originally I had “intensified”, as in “…it has only been intensified by their experiences together.” But you see I added “intense” before “experiences” and the repetition no longer worked. “… it has only been intensified by their intense experiences…”
I searched first for “intense”, because I’d added the adjective after my choice of verb. Penetrating, strong, powerful, forceful. Then I tried them in my phrase. “…intensified by their strong experiences…” “intensified by their powerful experiences…”
I didn’t like it. I liked “intense experiences”, so I stepped back and looked up “intensified”. Deepened, exaggerated, increased, strengthened. I plugged those words in: “…it has only been deepened by their intense experience…” “…it has only been exaggerated by their intense experience…” Nope. Not working. I keep going. “… it has only been strengthened by their intense experience.” Yes. Much better image of what I want to get across.
There are times, too, when I have a word in mind but I doubt whether I’m using the word in the right context so I use the thesaurus as my dictionary.
“David will take you across,” Annie speaks to Lyra. “And,” her tone turns SARDONIC, “since David now knows about your… talents, we can talk freely.”
It’s an unnecessary JIBE that Lyra ignores.
The word sardonic popped into my head, but was I using it in the right way? Up comes the thesaurus: mocking, scornful, sarcastic. Yep. That’s what I meant.
“Jibe”: taunt, dig, insult. Yes, “jibe” works.
So I carry on (recommence, restart, continue) with my new best friend, thesaurus (lexicon, glossary, vocabulary, wordlist) and marvel at how many ways in the English language we can say the same (similar, identical, equal, equivalent) thing.
No wonder good writing takes so long 🙂