The Book Nerd

This is the home of the book nerd. If you would rather read a book than watch TV, you'll fit right in. Here's the spot by my hearth where I share all good things literary:

- rants and humor about books, readers and writers;

- book reviews with a literary and outsider bent;

- lists of great books for specific topics, tastes and purposes;

- helpful tips for anyone who writes on style, voice, world building and characters;

- war stories from the world of indie publishing;

- And tasty morsels about my books, settings and characters.

I'm sharing the real tricks of writing that I use every day.

Today, here's the one site I always have open on my desktop if I'm writing on my computer. Granted, you have to keep discipline in order to have your browser open without going to social media and breaking up your writing time. But if you can do that, open a window in the background and you'll have the basic tools at your fingertips.

My favorite on-line thesaurus is www.wordhippo.com.

Here's why:

1. You know that point when you're writing along at a good pace and your character smiles in an unfriendly way. Not at you necessarily. At another character. You don't want to use the word "smile" or "smirk" or "grin," because you've already used those in the past few chapters. And you definitely don't want to resort to "humorlessly" or (shudder) "grimly?" Now, maybe you're a born genius and this never happens to you. Maybe you always have strong, specific words at your fingertips and finding the perfect one never sets you back a moment.

But if you're like most of us, this kind of problem can lead to writer's block or to using vague placeholder words or just to time-consuming frustration. Back in the day, we had to keep a heavy thesaurus around and even that was limited by printing costs in the number of words it could list. The days of the internet are truly wonderful!

Wordhippo suggests "sneer," "leer" and "beam" for a potentially unfriendly smile.

Painting by Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450–1516) through Wikipedia — Painting by Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450–1516) through Wikipedia

2. Áside from synonyms, Wordhippo also lets you look up words that mean the opposite. An interesting opposite for "sneer" might be "commend," "admire," or "applaud."

3. Wordhippo also offers quick grammar advice such as the correct tenses and plurals as well as a dictionary definition and example sentences.

4. One of my favorite features is the rhyme dictionary. I occasionally include riddles or songs in my stories and there is no shame in using a rhyming dictionary to get the ideas flowing. It's just like using a thesaurus in narrative writing.

5. Then there are the lists of related words. For "admire," Wordhippo gives "admiration," "admirer" and "Admiral" among a dozen or so others. You don't have to spend time and brain power trying to remember. And when you're dealing with an awkward sentence a look at this list might be all it takes to change the focus, make it more active and cut through the fluff.

6. There's a sweet little section on names toward the bottom. In my example, there are names beginning with "A," Names meaning "admire" and names beginning with "admire." Character naming has a whole new dimension.

7. There are lists of matching words that start with the first letter of a given word, the first two letters, the first three letters and so on (for your alliterative delight).

8. And if that isn't enough, there are translations of each word into 50 plus languages. It may be risky to use this part in hopes of choosing the correct word to be mentioned in a foreign language in your story, but it can at least get you started, so that you have something to check when you find a native speaker to confirm it. (See my previous post on Quora for a great place to find native speakers of obscure languages who are glad to help you do their language right. I've had several Burmese speakers help me on my latest book just for the fun of knowing that there will be some modern fiction out there in English that won't mangle a reference to their mother tongue.)

WARNING: I know it's been said before, but it bears repeating. Don't use words you don't really know. You use a thesaurus to jog your memory and move faster, so you can get on with your plot. The goal is NOT to sprinkle your prose with a spectacular vocabulary. The whole point of looking up the word "smile" In my initial example is that you want to find a strong and highly specific verb so that you can avoid the use of weak adverbs. The key point here is "specific." Think of it in terms of finding the exact right tool for the job or tuning a musical instrument to the precise sweet spot. You have to know your tools or have good pitch in order to do either. And in writing, you have to know the vocabulary. Use the most specific word that you are already familiar with from the list. (If you aren't familiar with enough words, hit the library and read piles of books. Look up words as you go. That is really the only way to increase usable vocabulary.) Don't use a word you don't have experience with for one simple reason. You don't know its other connotations and the chances are good that it actually won't be the specific word you need but something that means something slightly different.

Otherwise, pop open Wordhippo the next time you write and see if things roll just a bit more smoothly.

I love hearing from you, drop a comment below and let me know know about your favorite thesaurus or your favorite super specific word for describing a character's facial expressions.

Happy writing!